Cloning Evolution
by Bone White Butterfly
Summary: It fell apart. Magneto won, executing the X Men or keeping them alive in a Hell on Earth. But he didn't know that two of the bodies were fakes. And now, a decade later, more copies appear. This time alive. 'Romy & Jott, and Romy & Jott...among others'
1. Take Away the Mystique

**Cloning Evolution** _—Bone White Butterfly_

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Magneto won. Years later, the last bit of X-resistance brings back the old team (& others) through cloning. The DNA's identical, but that's about it. A "playah" Rogue, a Wolverine w/o claws…a walking Xavier w/ hair! & they're all teenagers...God help the bad guys**

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**Erm, hi. This isn't the first time me and X: Evo have crossed paths, though it's the first fiction you'll see from me. A 250 character summary doesn't suit my stories well, doesn't do them justice at all, so here's a second crack at it:** _The last time we saw the X-Men, they were happy, alive, and united—had a big family photo to prove it—but soon that all changed. Magneto came back (St. John was ticked, I know), restarted his war, and eventually won. By the end of this period, the X-Men have been torn apart, quite a few are dead, and (as you'll notice) are rather depressed. The most unlikely mutants ended up on Magneto's side, and the rest…turned up dead. Or so they think. Two have actually survived, and they're pulling a desperate recruitment gamble by cloning the most powerful mutants from the past. It works. Round Two is about to begin. _

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And, question: Is this fic really rated T, or have I finally crossed the threshold of "maturity" into M? I don't know. This new rating thing confuses me…and I can't remember what I was okay with reading when I was 13. So what is it? T or M?**_**

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**(Insert witty disclaimer stating "BWB didn't create X-Men, etc. / won't accept money for it…unless they insist" here)_**

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X X X

Cloning Evolution  
Step 1: Take away the Mystique

X X X

Jean leaned forward, her folded arms propped up on the balcony rail as she stared out at the bay. The mansion on the wooded cliff by the sea had been her home and refuge for most of her life. The world changed—she changed—but the old mansion and the waves crashing in below remained the same. She would come here, sometimes, when it felt like the changes were too hard to bear, and watch the waves roll in, each the same as the one before.

She found herself moping on that balcony far too often lately.

The wind picked up, tugging uselessly at the strands of hair in her tight bun. The lenses of her glasses shivered in their frames, and she closed her eyes. Bit by bit, she shut her mind to the outside world, silencing the voices, until she could only hear the tumult of the waves against the rocks below. _How long?_ she asked no one but herself. _How long?_

Kurt would pray. The Cajun placed his faith in Lady Luck and then calculated the odds anyway. Scott would say 'Let it come' in his stoic way. Though more rebelliously, Logan would say the same. The two were much alike, though they would kill each other before they admitted it.

Jean herself was a believer in inevitability. A wave started somewhere in the middle of the ocean, and once it got started it wouldn't stop until it touched the shore. So she never asked if, only when. How long?

The war had been the won—and lost; Magneto's wave had crashed in. Now they were in a relative state of peace as the water quietly flowed in and out, but how long? How long until the next wave hit and the world changed again? And would she change? Would she switch sides and stay afloat by riding the next wave, as she had abandoned Xavier's dying cause for Magneto's victory? Or would the inevitable catch up with her and drag her down in the undertow? It was bound to happen eventually, but when?

How long did she have? She sighed and swept her gaze across the water. For years now she had been plagued by the feeling that her fate was somehow tied up in those waves. Why? One day she would learn the answer, she knew.

But hopefully not today.

X X X

The sun shone down on the sea, and the wind breathed upon it, and together they made it seem a rippling sheet of gold. Beneath the flowing surface, the water glowed the same cerulean blue as the sky, only so much more vibrantly. And then, descending through the depths, darkness crept in bit by bit. Invisible to any onlooker from above, a small, remote control sub chugged through the murky gloom, illuminating the world about it with a beam of light.

It wound around the cliff slowly, searching among the rocks for some thing, a treasure that had long since been forgotten. The light swept over a crevice, passing right by. Then it paused and swung back to the forbidding dark fissure in the cliff wall. Narrowing, the beam lanced into the crevice, starting at the top and working down. There, a tad higher than the light's source, something was illuminated. Wedged into the crack was a marble white arm, broken off from some exquisite statue. Time and less than perfect conditions had eroded it away some, but the more prominent creases in the outstretched hand were still visible.

A thousand miles away, a woman stared at a video recording of the same hand as it reaching out desperately for her. She averted her eyes. "That's it," she sighed. "Have tha mini-sub bring it back here so we can get this over with." She turned to leave, but a large clawed hand caught at her sleeve.

"We must be sure, my dear. It would be most unfortunate if that turned out only to be a broken piece of some garden statue the Xavier family threw into the sea."

She looked back at the image of the arm. "Do you see how tha joints in tha hand are a little knobby, the nails long and pointed?" she asked. "Looks like it belongs tah a monster." She tucked a lock of white hair behind her ear. "Believe me, Hank. It's hers."

He released her. "Thank you Rogue." As she exited the dim room, he took hold of a control panel with his own bestial hands, carefully bringing out a few mechanical arms and removing the arm from the crevice it had been jammed in for years. The priceless treasure was soon tucked away within the miniature sub. Obeying the command to return home, the little machine activated its small engines and sped away from the lonely cliff.

He smiled, baring an impressive set of fangs to no one in particular. What little light there was in the room reflected off his round bifocals. Chuckling, he mused, "I do believe I feel a change in the wind."

X X X

Jean glanced down at the waves sharply, sensing something was amiss.

"Pr…Professor?"

She turned towards the source of the shaky voice. A girl stood by the entrance to the balcony, clinging to the doorframe. She was a young thing, young enough that she might still turn out to be a mutant, though the odds were stacked against her on that. She was also young enough to stare at a mutant with respect. It wasn't so long ago that children were raised to hate the _Homo superior_. Things had changed since then.

"Yes?" Jean asked of the girl.

"Something hap…it's…it's Mr. Grey, Professor!" the girl blurted, frightened.

Frowning, Jean opened her mind and reached for her husband. Her eyes widened, as her vision was suddenly flooded with red –too much red. She could see splashes of crimson mixed in with the ruby.

"Call the medics," she heard herself saying as she rushed back into the mansion with the girl at her heels. "Tell them Cyclops had another episode. Then run back to the library with some towels. Go!" They went in separate directions. She stalked through the library's glass door and took the scrapbook from her husband's lap. It was the source of the problem. She didn't pause to look at the picture it was open to. She didn't need to. It was always the same one.

The X-Men had gathered before the steps of the mansion, even pulling former teammates and allies in for the snapshot. She and Scott had stood directly behind Xavier, smiling in each other's arms. They had all been so happy to be alive then, and it had showed. Hands had reached out and clasped throughout the picture, shoulders mingled. They were one cohesive whole, and nothing could pull them apart.

Or so they had thought.

She knelt and cradled Scott's head in her hands, letting her mind stop the blood flow. He sat on the floor, slumped against a bookcase. He shivered as her skin glowed, growing hot, and his wounds suddenly cauterized. She stared into his eyes: two orbs of ruby red behind sorrow twisted eyelids. As always, there were no tears.

She didn't break eye contact with him for a minute, not when the girl stumbled in with a mountain of towels in her arms, not when a medic arrived with the right drugs and an IV blood pack. B-. She girl she asked to start cleaning up if her stomach could take it. The medic knew what to do, and they moved Scott into the bedroom together as she stared into his eyes.

As he lay in bed, she held his hand waiting for the drugs to take hold of him, thinking about inevitability. When? How long? How long could she hold it off? His eyes seemed to say one thing: 'Let it come.'

After a time, she left him to his slumber with a part of her mind firmly lodged in his thoughts. A precaution she should have used earlier that day. Back in the library, she told the girl to go home and ignored the mess as she picked up the scrapbook and found a seat in an armchair. In the group shot, she studied the smiling face of Professor Charles Xavier. It was one of the few pictures left of him. In fact, all traces of her teacher and second father were slowly disappearing, bit by bit. The mansion wouldn't be torn down. It was her home; she would let it. But it seemed that in a few years, the mansion and this picture of an old man lost in a crowd of young faces would be the only proof that he had ever existed.

Besides the memories.

She sighed. That was why Scott hoarded away the picture: to remember a time when Scott Summers and Jean Gray had stood arm in arm behind Charles Xavier, each with a hand resting firmly on one of his noble shoulders. She shut the book with a decisive snap, and then stared out the window at the waves.

X X X

The arm lay on a sterile tray in the lab. Sighing, Rogue stood at a sink, scrubbing her hands, as Dr. McCoy readied his instruments. As she worked, she stared down at the suds on her hands, wondering if what they had planned for months was really a good idea.

Hank, picking up on her distress, assured her, "It will work fine, my dear. It's not like I haven't done this before." He had picked up on her distress, but his diagnose of the cause was completely off.

"There's a difference between replicatin' dead bodies'n'dogs, and remakin' a person who can hop off tha examining table an' bitch slap yah," she sighed. It was what he thought she'd say, not what was bothering her. She glanced at the lily-white arm. Blindly, it reached out for someone in desperation and hope, for someone who had walked away a long time ago.

"There's less difference between a bloodhound and a human being then you think," he responded pulling on surgical gloves. She would kill for a pair of those. "And besides, we chose her to be the first for a reason. If some goes wrong, her cells will adjust to fix the problem." He gestured to the arm, saying, "I'm ready."

She wasn't, but she dried her hands and shuffled up to the tray. Hesitantly, she reached out and paused, her fingertips hovering above the petrified forearm. She sighed and flinched back, curling her hand into a fist.

"Goddamn it, Rogue!" Hank growled and grabbed her, plunging her hand down onto the arm. She gasped and fell limp against his broad chest. Spreading from the point of contact, the arm turned from white marble to soft, blue flesh. It spasmed, and the monstrous hand lashed out, latching onto Rogue's wrist. A half gasp, half scream escaped from the woman's throat as Hank, with some effort, reached forward and pried the arm off her. Once detached, the arm fell completely limp in his grasp. He laid it back down on the tray. Blood, fresh as the day it was made, oozed from the end of the limb.

"Thank you, Rogue," he said genially. The sarcasm in his voice was incredibly subtle, but as hurtful as jamming a tiny needle through her eye.

Resolutely, she grabbed up a surgical glove, donned it, and slapped him across his hairy face. He fell to the floor. Stalking away, she tore off the glove and threw it in a container marked "hazardous waste." She slammed the door to the lab behind her and looked left and right down the long hallway, thinking where the closest sink was. When she found it, she was going to scour her hands with anti-bacterial, straight up to the elbow, straight down to the bone.

X X X

Months later, Rogue found herself peering through the observation glass at a sleeping child. What muscle the girl had was stringy and wrapped up in thin, rubbery blue limbs. She curled into herself, surrounded by an array of tubes and stainless steel machinery suspended in a golden liquid. Her red hair, long as all hell, floated around her face. It was an angel's face, made up in the colors of a demon.

Slowly, the child opened a golden eye and stared at her visitor. Curiosity emblazoned itself on her face, and she shifted forward. Her hand reached out towards Rogue. The joints were slightly knobby, the fingernails long. Rogue looked away, but she couldn't help but glance back.

The child's eyes flitted rapidly between her own arms and Rogue's folded ones. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and, unsteadily, her forearms changed color up to the wrist, fuzzily replicating the woman's green sweater. Her hands changed, turning from blue to black, pretending to be gloves. She awkwardly folded her arms as well. An anxious, unpracticed smile lit upon her face as she looked to Rogue for approval.

Rogue smiled and nodded slightly.

The child's face was ecstatic, then the expression fell away as dark liquid flowed through the tubes impaling her midriff. Her arms changed back to midnight blue. Rogue frowned. Hank was putting her though another growth spurt. She was still too thin from the last one.

She watched as the girl's eyes rolled skywards, her neck craning, before the drugs took hold and her body went completely slack. _Does it hurt?_ she wondered, as she watched. _Does she blame us for it, or does she think this is a normal life?"_ Sighing, she turned and walked away.

X X X

Later, the girl woke later to the sounds of classical music and a woman's voice patiently running through a list of vocabulary. A television screen had come down, and on it, images flashed by. Weak, but hungry to learn, she stared into the screen as the watery voice named them in a soothing tone. 'Duck. Flower. Baby. Knife. Gun. Bomb. Poison.'

She blinked at one certain picture. That woman with blue skin and red hair was in it, her face contorted and cruel. She held a smoking gun in one hand. Various weapons lay scattered at her feet.

When this image came up, the voice in the water called it, 'You. Mystique.'

She understood that concept. When the voice said 'you,' it was talking about her. She stared at the picture, at that dangerous, terrifying monster of a woman and thought, _'Mystique. Me.'_

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oookay… Yes, I'm deranged, dying of heat exhaustion in Wisconsin of all places, and very bored. You read this thing; what's your excuse? Anyway, that's the 1st chapter. If you feel like reviewing, tell me if this fiction should be rated T or M. I really have no clue. **

**Bye-bye!**


	2. Nurture the Nature

**Um, I started writing this chapter a long time ago, stopped, and am now trying again. It is part of my new initiative to develop a writing routine. Do me a favor: _"Yell at me if I don't update soon."_ **

**(_Wrote these a long time ago, but am too lazy to delete.)_**

**Anna Marie Raven:** Yeah…sigh. I got all excited about this fic and posted the first chapter…then realized my planned plot was crap. I've been rewriting that for some time now. You see, I depend on plots. The framework keeps my story from going insane and branching off in a million different ways at once. I'm pretty sure I can get back to the writing part now.

**GothikStrawberry: **Huh. You're right; Logan does have bone claws. And his birth name is James Howlett, he started out his MARVEL career in "The Incredible Hulk," and Sabertooth just won't stop trying to kill him—ever. Jesus, I love They tell you frickin' everything.

Alliriyan: I fixed the mistakes, so you can stop pestering me. Say, why don't you post something for a change? God knows you have enough plotbunnies. And what happened to calling me on my birthday? (For anyone else reading this, I'm 17 now. I wish I were 1 year younger, for weird reasons. I've got the same B-Day as Hitler. If I were exactly one year younger, I'd have been born exactly 100 years after him. Creepy. …And to think he was a painter before he tried the world domination gig. Silly mustache man, it's the writers who will take over the world! …Um, Alliriyan, why are other people reading this?)

XXX

_Cloning Evolution_

_Step 2: Nurture the Nature_

XXX

McCoy sat alone in the conference room, poring over a list of names. One black line had been drawn through the word Mystique.

"There are four obvious choices," said the doctor into a handheld tape recorder, absently pointing to four names. "Powerful. Useful. The problem is that they're all located in Genosha."

By Genosha, he meant the nation's new capitol city, built right on top of the bones of Bayville. The old town was completely destroyed. Only the Mansion had remained the same, though it must have been rebuilt dozens of times over the last two decades.

"Phoenix is living in the Mansion now," McCoy went on, "and Shadowcat is buried on the grounds in the old Xavier family cemetery. As always, the Mansion's security is unbelievably tight." He pointed to one of the names, his long nail tapping the paper. "Nightcrawler keeps to the Cathedral—or the University, for his religion lectures. Both places are monitored night and day. Why the Cathedral has cameras, I don't know. Perhaps there are valuable religious relics stored there. And of course, Magneto keeps himself under heavy guard constantly." He shrugged. "In short, we need someone who can get close to these people and look like she belongs there. Rogue and myself are out of the question, seeing as we're both dead and our bodies buried."

He smiled, baring a bit of fang. "Ah the wonders of science. …Hiring someone else is also out of the question. Thanks to LeBeau, every professional thief in the country works for Magneto's government. And, unfortunately, Mystique's physical training is progressing slower than I had predicted. Rogue's latest estimate is that she'll be ready after a year, possibly later. My plan is to send in her in eight months from now, at the latest. I'm pushing for six."

"McCoy!"

He growled and stopped the tape, rewinding it back a bit so he could later record over Rogue's shout. Livid, she burst into the conference room and screeched his name again, even louder than she had in the hall. People talked about red-hot fury, especially when mentioning certain redheads, but Rogue was different. She went white, even her lips, especially her eyes. White flame burned hotter than red, almost as hot as blue. She seemed capable of turning that murderous blue, her skin had gone so white.

It made the odd, red splotch on her neck stand out all the more. The stain hovered over her right carotid artery. McCoy studied it curiously as she fumed at him. It wasn't blood; a slice that size in the artery would have bled her out long before she managed to stalk into the conference room. A food substance, perhaps. Sauce? But that made no sense. Rogue was a meticulously clean eater and careful about her appearance besides.

He gaze slid down to the dinner knife trapped in her clenched fist. More of the thick, red sauce covered the shining metal's serrated edge. The knuckles in her hand twitched, a small warning before she slammed the knife onto the table in front of him. Flecks of red struck the list, his recorder, and his glasses.

"She stabbed me with that," she snarled, accusation in her voice. There was little doubt of who she felt was to blame. She rubbed her neck, making a face at the sauce that smeared onto her palm. "If my skin weren't tougher than nails, I'd be dead."

He shrugged. "Mystique's nature is a very ruthless one." He took out a handkerchief and started to wipe the bits of sauce off his spectacles.

She swiped at the glasses, sending them flying from his hands into a wall. "Ruthless don't teach how to kill with a knife," she snarled. "That's what humans are for, and God knows I ain't the one that did it. I've been too busy tryin' to teach her how to cut her _food_." Her eyes darted everywhere in the room except at him. "I don't want to know why; I wouldn' understand even if you told me. But when? When did you find the time to teach her to kill?"

"When she was growing."

Rogue visibly recoiled at the calm response. "The womb—you taught her in the womb!"

"It was not a wom—"

"Shut up!" she shouted. "I can't believe you. You slipped combat training into Forge's learnin' program, didn't you? Right in there with the ABCs and the names of body parts. You taught her to be a killer!"

"Mystique was already a killer, Rogue," he growled, starting to lose his patience with the hysterical woman. "It's in her character."

"How would you know? You've only seen her for checkups. You don't know what she's like. She's a sweet girl who—"

"She's a killer!" he roared, shocking her to silence. Tersely, he continued, "Mystique was and is a ruthless killer, my dear. That fact is hardwired into her. It's written in her DNA."

Rogue was shaking her head repetitively, never a good sign. "This isn't a Nature-Nurture debate, McCoy. She's a little girl."

"Biologically, she's sixteen years old, just entering the critical period for developing her mutant abilities. Do not open your mouth, my dear. The biological is _everything_. It determines sexuality, ability, _mutancy_, personality—"

"Her personality—"

"—Is genetically predisposed," he finished for her. "It's in her nature. So there's no point in trying to change it. Why do you insist on trying?"

She folded her arms. "Just guess I'm "genetically predisposed" to believe human beings are more than DNA. So there's no point in tryin' to change mah mind about it."

He stifled a groan. Stubbornness was certainly in her nature. Because of that, their argument, already going nowhere, was also bound to go on forever. "So what do you suppose we do?" he demanded, trying to be practical. "Throw away the months of work we've put into this clone and start over with another?"

"We?" she asked, placing both hands on the edge of the conference table. "You an' me? You are not doing anythin'. Ah think you've done enough."

"So we just end this and go our separate ways? If you will recall, my dear, this whole plan was your idea."

"I don't need you."

"Which of the two people in this room is a geneticist?"

The two of them ended up in a deadlock, glaring into each other's faces. Rogue looked away first. "So what do we do?" she asked.

"Indeed, what?" He paused a moment. "We stick with the original plan. We can't win by numbers—Forge's cloning machine wasn't made for mass production, anyway. We need the psychological shock, pitting them against their fallen friends and lovers, against themselves."

He was going to go on, to point out that Magneto won the war because he was able to pull some of the X-Men to his side, making it seem like all mutants were one united front. The majority of mutants and their sympathizers had switched to his side because of that. With the X-Men back and fighting against Magneto, the rift would reappear and divide the two sides again, weakening him and possibly strengthening their side enough to throw a _coup d'etat._ Rogue knew the plan. It was her idea. But she wasn't going to let McCoy applaud her brainchild, pat her on the head, and tell her to run along like a good little girl.

"We change the plan," she stated. "You will not touch these children. They are _children_, not experiments. You'll have nothin' t'do with them."

"Has it occurred to you, Rogue, that now that I have Mystique's DNA and a successful clone, I don't need you anymore?"

"Has it occurred to you, McCoy, that all I have to do is strangle you with mah bare hands?"

That ended the argument.

XXX

Rogue leaned across the table and pulled the list of names towards her. She studied it for a while, considering. "Tell you what, Hank," she sighed. You leave the children to me, an' I'll get you DNA samples of four of the strongest Old X-Men in less than two weeks.

Hank leaned back in his chair. Without the combat education during the developmental stage, the clones' training would be slowed, but getting four samples a year ahead of schedule more than made up for it. He nodded to Rogue. "Two weeks."

XXX

"…Darlin'?"

The girl looked up at Rogue, a shy smile lighting her face. "Hi, Rogue." Her eyes fell on the woman's neck, and she grew pensive. "Was I bad?"

Rogue tried not to make a face. She had no idea how to explain this. "No, darlin'," she began, getting the easy part over with first. She walked into the room and knelt by the clone, who sat hunched on the floor. "When you were growin', you were taught things…"

"The voice-pictures," the girl supplied, giving her word for the education program.

Rogue nodded. "Yes. I don't know how to say this, hon, but some of the voice-pictures were—bad. You were taught wrong things." She reached out and stroked the long red hair. "Don't worry about it. I'll make sure you get taught right." The woman smiled and changed topics. "I have a present for you, Darlin'."

She pulled it out from where it had been tucked into the back of her jeans and handed it to the girl. The little blue beauty smiled as it slid in her hands. She pointed it at Rogue and squeezed the trigger.

Rogue face fell, and the clone's did the same. She looked down at the toy gun in her hands. "This is another bad thing," she said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

The woman closed her eyes. That question, the bane of her existence. Surely the parents of children felt the same way, but their charges normally didn't ask why guns were bad. Why, why couldn't the clone have asked why the sky was blue? "Darlin', pinch your arm," she told the girl at last.

A moment later: "Ai!"

She had to pause and stifle a laugh. The girl had made up her own word for 'Ow.' "That hurt, didn't it?" she asked rhetorically once she regained her composure. "You didn't like it."

The clone shook her head, proof that she at least had picked up a few nonverbal cues from Rogue.

"What you did with the knife, and…well, guns in general—they hurt people. Really bad."

Now the girl looked at her quizzically. "You weren't hurt."

"That gun's not real," she explained. "You can fill it with water an' get folks wet. And the knife…my skin's different. It doesn't get cut like normal folks', so I was okay. But someone else would have got hurt."

There was an odd silence for a moment. Then: "I was wondering why your skin wasn't blue like everybody else's."

Rogue couldn't help it. She started laughing. Of course the girl knew nothing about the real world. In her experience, the blue people outnumbered the peachy _one_ two to one. Then she sobered quickly for a variety of reasons. For one, McCoy was one of those blue people and she didn't want to think about him. Then she was also trying to explain something very serious.

She tried to get back on topic. "Nobody wants to get hurt. Knives and real guns hurt people. You don't wanta hurt people. That's bad." Rogue smiled comfortingly. "It's okay; you didn't know. Just don't do it anymore, an' we'll call it even."

Now the girl looked worried. "How do I know if something's bad?"

Rogue sighed, blowing a bit of white hair out of her face. Then she blinked. Finally, an easy question. Sagely, she advised, "There's this rule. It says: 'Don't do anything you don't want other folks ta do to you.' You understand?"

The clone still seemed to be turning the idea over in her head, but she nodded.

They were silent for a time. Who knew what the blue one was thinking, but Rogue was fretting about one last reason why she had stopped laughing so abruptly before. The girl knew absolutely nothing about the real world, and that was "bad." One: if she was supposed to go out and pretend to be the enemy—not any time soon—she'd stick out like a sore thumb and get herself captured or killed. Two: she had almost literally grown up in a petri dish, and that was just wrong. Drastic measures had to be taken.

Rogue found herself smiling at the girl. "Darlin', d'you know what a mall is?"

She cut off the girl's encyclopedia definition mid-word, declaring, "We're going on a fieldtrip, hon."

XXX

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**Reviews are appreciated, but I can kinda tell if people are reading my story because of the Stats feature. It is nice to get feedback, though. If you have something to tell me, shoot. I tend to reply to reviews.**

**WILL UPDATE IN JUST A FEW DAYS, PROMISE.**


	3. Dose with Reality

**Note to Peoples: Have College Paper/Presentation due Wednesday. Don't expect anything 'til Thursday, minimum**

**Wild Card Reaf:** _Oh. My. God._ An intelligent review. You referenced specific parts and explained why you liked them. …will you marry me?  
Anyway, could you elaborate a bit on the Mystique's stone arm question? Are you curious about how it ended up lodged in an underwater crevice? Or do you mean: "Why the heck did the severed arm grab Rogue!"  
Heh. I'm glad you like the sudden switches between serious and funny. I do that a lot. It's fun to give my readers emotional whiplash.

_Thanks_ **night-angel35** _and_ r**awringlizzard**, _for making this a favorite fic._  
_Hugs go to_ **Wild Card Reaf**, _for putting this on story alert._

———_And eternal gratitude to the _**50**_-ish people who've read the story so far———  
_(firm believer in Stats feature…number is the hits for the latest chapter)

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XXX

_Cloning Evolution  
_Step 3: A Dose of Reality

XXX

Getting her to morph into a cute little redhead girl and hold that shape turned out to be the easy part.

"I need to give you a name, hon," Rogue explained.

The girl frowned at that. "I'm Mystique," she stated.

Rogue face became a roiling thundercloud. Various thoughts of killing McCoy filtered through her head. She knew he took to calling the clone the same name as her genetic-mother—considering his belief that DNA was everything, he probably thought of the two of them as the same person. She still couldn't believe he told her that was her name. He couldn't be more wrong. This little girl wasn't Mystique. She was an angel.

"Mystique isn't your real name," she explained somewhat patiently. The clone put on that face that Rogue thought meant 'the voice-pictures were wrong again.' "Mystique was…" Rogue closed her mouth. How to explain this cloned thing to a being who was only a few months old? "You're related to her. You look a lot like her, but you're not her."

"What's my real name?" the girl asked.

"Risty."

Rogue blinked after she said the name, not understanding what had possessed her. Risty had been a persona Mystique made up to get close to her. Rogue had thought they were friends. Maybe more than friends. Maybe family. She smiled at that. This little girl was definitely family. "Now then…" she mused, sitting and playing with the halo-watch on her wrist until her hair turned the same shade of red as Risty's. To her relief, the shade worked with her shade of skin.

"Now…Risty," she began, "While we're out there, yah need to call me Mom."

"Isn't your name Rogue?"

"Yes, but yah can't call me that outside. Call me Mom. People need ta think I'm your mom."

"That you're my mom…" Risty said, switching the pronouns around thoughtfully. Then, she nodded, "Okay, Mom."

Rogue couldn't help but wonder what was going on. Was Risty accepting it all so quickly because she desperately wanted an identity? Or was it because her mutant genes made it easy for her to pretend to be someone she wasn't? The woman automatically chose the option that had nothing to do with genes. Her rage at McCoy was still fresh in her mind.

She smiled at Risty. "Let's go. Now remember; stay close to me no matter what…

XXX

The mall was supposed to be a learning experience for the newly named Risty, but there were a few shocks in for "Mom" as well. There was a closed off dining lounge for mutant families. There were security guards crawling everywhere, but they didn't even blink when a girl with literal spikes for hair shoved a normal one into a wall. When Rogue found Risty staring at the mutant girl, troubled, she leaned down and whispered, "Yes, she's breakin' the rule. Someone'll deal with her—later."

Other than that, it was your typical 21st century mall: big, bright, lots of glass and brand names. And people. Risty turned out to be shy. The girl was all but surgically grafted to her leg. She was probably shocked that the majority of people were not blue-skinned. Rogue chuckled. At least the girl wasn't trying to burrow herself inside her leather jacket. No, she was outside and looking around excitedly—just keeping within 3 millimeters of her mom at all times.

They went clothes shopping. Rogue became a benevolent dictator mom and let Risty pick out outfits for her and "her big sister" under supervision. Not so surprisingly, a majority of the clothes ended up being various shades of blue. As they cleared the last store, Rogue looked down at the little girl in her slightly outdated khakis, shirt, and sneakers and realized something. Risty was essentially naked. If she lost control of her morph for any amount of time…

"Bathroom break, Mom chirped.

XXX

They entered the family stall. Rogue's instincts told her there was a camera somewhere in the place, but she also knew the odds were that that no one had bothered to check the recording in years. So, after some trouble, she explained to Risty that clothes, in fact, were separate from your body and you wore them over your bare skin. In the end, it wasn't perfect. They hadn't bought any underwear or socks or shoes. The concept of underwear was a foreign concept to Risty anyway. She tended to only appreciate the surface of things. (Wonder why.) She morphed her feet back into the plain, shoelace-less sneakers after Mom helped her into the outfit she picked, and they were back on their way.

Rogue sprang for pizza at the food court. It was delicious, so not nutritious, and not a dinner knife in sight. She found herself trying not to laugh with a mouthful of pepperoni as Risty watched her with laser-beam eyes before picking up a slice of pizza and eating it the exact same way as her mom. Left to right, repeat process until you reach the crust, split said crust in half, and eat it horizontal. Everyone had their quirks. Risty just seemed intent on copying all of hers down to the letter. Again, she had to wonder. Was the girl a stranger to the world, determined to learn how to fit in? Or was her mimicry instinctive? Rogue swallowed her food as it turned to ash in her mouth.

She pushed her food aside and watched the clone dig into hers, then move on to her mom's leftovers. Then she asked if she could have more pizza. Understandable. The girl didn't look it, but she was still undernourished from a few months of constant, monstrous growth spurts. She'd also never had pizza before. Rogue beat off the parental guilt by making sure the next two enormous pizza slices were loaded with veggies. To avoid any odd looks, she moved the two of them away from their old table to another one at the opposite end of the sitting area. As Risty ate happily, a mother nearby eyed the vegetables and asked Rogue what her secret was. She put her index fingers on her temples and replied, "Mind control."

The other woman, her carnivore children, and Rogue shared a laugh as Risty chomped down more vegetables. Then both women sat back with a sad smile, thinking along the same lines. Just a few years ago, a joke like that would have resulted in accusations of being a mutant freak. In the wrong crowd, Rogue _and Risty_ would have found fists pummeling them. But now the government encouraged people to talk like having powers was normal. They sighed. In the old days, it would have just been a joke, not a political statement.

The mother seemed to be the type to talk to cover up nervousness. She started up a conversation with Rogue about the nutrition of children these days that somehow evolved to talk about motherhood itself. The guardian of the clone tried her best to act like a real mom. At least she had the advantage of having taught Risty to feed herself these past few weeks. And use the toilet. _That_ had been an unexpected un-fun experience.

Speaking of which…

She cleared trash and hauled Risty off towards the bathroom. She didn't care if the girl was able to expand her bladder at will. She was not going to deal with an accident in the middle of a crowd of strange people.

They came back out to see a sorry sight. Some mutant teenagers were in the middle of ordering some ordinary ones to leave the table they had just sat down at. One of the seated normal boys smiled nervously and tried to solve the situation with some gentle words. He was thrown out of his chair. Rogue felt her left hand clench into a fist, though she was careful not to crush Risty's hand in her right. There were empty tables nearby. There was a special area just for mutants. It was totally unnecessary. It was wrong, and it was abuse, not to mention a sad bit of history doomed to repeat itself yet again.

Granted, it could be worse. There weren't any guns, and it wasn't a mob situation, but it was wrong in different way. At least normal folk had reacted against "the freaks" out of fear. These mutant teenagers were picking random targets for fun. People not in the immediate area were talking a little too loudly and averting their children's gazes. They were so pointedly not paying attention, it was sick.

The remaining seated teenagers quickly vacated their seats. The bullies laughed. "Who wants to sit where a Normal's been?" sneered one, and they turned to leave.

Just then, Risty's troubled voice cut clear across the food court. "Mom, they're being Bad, aren't they? They're breaking the Rule." The capitals in Bad and Rule were more audible than a thunderclap. The mutant delinquents froze in their tracks. More than a few people flinched.

Out of the mouths of babes, it seemed. "Yes, Darlin', they're breakin' the rule," Rogue replied, pitching her voice slightly. It turned out she didn't need to. The area was so quiet a pin dropping sounded loud. She looked around, and took this as her last chance to walk away quickly with Risty before the mutie bullies decided they weren't above teaching a little kid a lesson.

They slipped into the crowd and headed to a different area of the mall on a different floor. Their destination, when they reached it, just so happened to be the opposite end of the building.

XXX

There was a big-chain bookstore. Rogue frowned at it thoughtfully, thinking of a book that had been banned in her Mississippi high school's library. The professor had given her a copy. Lovingly worn, it had burned with the rest of the mansion. She nodded. "Hon, I wanta buy you a special book," she smiled and led Risty into the store, determined to get another copy.

She frowned when it wasn't in the extensive Classics section. Risty, who still hadn't quite grasped the concept of what a book was, stared in wonder at the shelves of them as Rogue dragged her around, hunting for the book. Eventually her "Mom" sighed, exasperated, and stalked out of the maze of bookbindings in search of a store kiosk.

They found one in a section chockablock full with colorful, picture filled books and games. For the first time in fifteen minutes, Rogue released Risty's hand and told her to "stay nearby, hon." The woman then walked purposefully to a counter to talk to another, older lady. "Ah'm lookin' for a book," she began.

Risty wandered a ways, torn on whether to try the area with books covered with pictures of girls or the one that was decidedly blue. She was leaning towards the blue, but then she noticed a little slice where blue and girls met. Perfect.

A lot of the wall was taken up with slightly thick books, all with pictures of a blue-haired girl on them. Risty fingered her own long, unfortunately red hair. The desire to try out the blue look was particularly strong, but Rogue had told her not to change what she looked like.

A boy and girl with similar features and a small age difference bounded up to the display, startling her. "Killer!" the boy cried. "They've got a new one!" The girl instantly grabbed two copies of a certain book and a short fight over whose book was in better condition ensued. The girl ended the argument by stating, "They're both Guardian Girl, so they're both good." The boy couldn't argue with that.

"What is Guardian Girl?" Risty asked, her curiosity overcoming her shyness just long enough to pose the question.

Both children stared at her. "You don't know?" squawked the girl. Risty found two arms draped over her shoulder as two voices excitedly told her everything they knew about the lovely, blue-haired Guardian Girl.

Rogue, meanwhile, was starting to get a bit perturbed. The clerk had just informed her that they didn't have _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain in stock. "You should have that one," she said. "It's a Classic and practically a required read." She sighed, debating her options. She desperately wanted the book, but there was no way she was going to buy it on Ebay and have it delivered to a secret, subterranean base. That left one option, outside of rewriting the book from memory. "Please order me a copy, a nice one," she requested and began searching through her purse, looking for the debit card she had bought Risty's clothes with.

"I can't do that, Miss."

She looked up from her rifling. "What?"

In another corner, Risty was experiencing information overload.

"…a mutant—  
—who's got a cool power!  
—When she's angry—  
—her arms get huge—  
—and she beats up the bad guys—  
—and saves the people!  
_She helps everyone live together peace._  
And the bad army…"

It didn't matter which sibling was talking. It was both of them, rapid fire. They didn't seem capable of finishing one sentence on their own. They went on to talk about Guardian Girl's boyfriend/not-boyfriend/is-too/is-not, a.k.a. DogBoy, and her dog Boy, whom both kids mentioned was not her boyfriend. Then they went back to Guardian Girl's mission/duty to save people, defeat the bad/evil army, actually kiss DogBoy/or not, and _help everyone live together in peace._ The _'She helps everyone live together in peace'_ line seemed to be the only part where they didn't argue about the wording. She noticed the phrase was written somewhere on each book. Funny thing was, the siblings didn't seem to noticing they were quoting it—constantly.

"What d'you mean the book's outta print!" 

Risty, the children, and most of the store looked up at Rogue. Unfortunately, her outburst didn't seem to be the end of it.

"It's required college reading; it can't be out of print," the livid woman informed the flustered clerk, at about the same decibel level as before. It wasn't anywhere near as loud as she could go, if necessary. She couldn't stand liars, especially bad liars, and the store employee was lousy at it. She wrenched the computer monitor on the counter around to face her. She ignored the clerk's protest and read the information on the screen. It was about the book _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain. The number of copies in stock was a lot more than zero.

What really made her blood boil, though, was the bright red warning by the title of the book. **_'Mutants Only'_**

"Yer censorin' tha books Non-Mutants can read!" There was a bright red warning on that sentence. And she had said it loud enough that people had probably heard her back in the food court on the opposite end of the mall. The clerk had a horrified expression on her face, and Rogue got the feeling this had been a secret until she shouted it for the world to hear. She'd pat herself on the back later. Now was the time to scream, demanding what the world had come to.

"Please be quiet," the woman behind the counter all but whispered.

"Why?" she asked loudly. "So you can cover this up an' pretend it never happened? An' why, why are you doin' this? Why're you keepin' people from reading books? What's wrong with The 'ventures of Huck Finn? Is it because it teaches that _it's wrong ta treat some people like dirt, just 'cause they're supposedly born "inferior?" That_ all _people are human beings?"_

A manager had appeared from somewhere. His eyes were a solid green color. "We'll give you the book, free," he pleaded. Just quiet down and leave."

Her head weighed the situation and decided that was the best thing to do, but her adrenaline was doing the talking. "No!" she cried, suddenly sick of everything. "How dare yah do this? It's wrong. Everything. Mutants just terrorize innocent people, and no one does anything! No one! Don't yah people remember the Civil Rights Movement? Don't yah remember "All Men are Created Equal"? Or have you censored that too? Did you censor the goddamned Declaration of Independence!"

She suddenly found Risty at her side. "Mom?" the girl asked nervously.

"Not now, Darlin'," Rogue said, one moment of sweetness breaking up her barrage of pent-up rage.

As she turned back to level more shouts at the manager, Risty looked in the other direction. A large number of security guards were gathering outside her mom's range of vision. A few were listening to their earpieces, nodded, and pulled the same object off their belts. It was sleek and black, but she recognized the object as a gun. There were now several of them pointed at Rogue's back. She felt her eyes flash. They were breaking the Rule.

She stalked up to the nearest guard with one of the odd guns and demanded at the top of her voice, half crying, "Are you going to hurt my Mom?" Everyone stopped when she said that, even Rogue. Risty glared up at the guard. "If you are, you're breaking the Rule!"

'_Her hair,' _someone whispered, but she didn't notice.

"My Mom's a nice person. She doesn't shove girls into walls or throw them out of chairs for no reason! She doesn't shoot people! She just wanted to buy me a special book, and you want to Hurt her! _You're breaking the Rule!"_

She wrenched the gun from the guard's hands. Rogue shouted, "Risty, no!" but she paid her no mind. She put the gun in one monstrous blue hand, balled her spare into a fist, and smashed it into her palm. The weapon smashed to bits in the process.

"_You don't do anything you don't want folks to do to you. Don't you people understand?"_ she screamed.

Rogue's jaw dropped as the other guards lowered their stun guns and backed off. Had they actually listened to her?

Then the bookstore manager demanded, "Why didn't you _tell_ us your daughter was a mutant?"

The Southerner bristled. They were backing off because they thought there were mutant genes in her family. She was suddenly "mutant class" and able to do shit without being punished. It was wrong, and she told him so. "Why didn' I? Because I shouldn' have to! It shouldn' matter who's what."

The rage was leaking from her system, being rapidly replaced with weariness and depression.

"Ah'm tired of it matterin'," she sighed. "Ah'm tired of the movin' around an' the stares, people Ah cared about dyin'. Ah'm tired of bein' hated. It's not supposed ta matter who's what. But it does, an'…Ah wish I had been normal." She paused in the dead silence. "Oh, hell."

A security guard stepped forward. "You're an unregistered mutant," he said, no doubt in his voice. "You both are." Suddenly Risty was in her arms. She looked down at the girl, now sporting blue hair and monstrously muscular, slightly blue arms. The rest of her was still flesh-toned, thankfully. She sighed, wondering where the girl had gotten the idea.

There were suddenly two orange pass cards in front of her face. "These will identity you as a mutant," the guard explained, clearly by rote. "Keep them with you always. You have two weeks to register as mutants—your name?" he asked, jumping out of memorization mode.

She sighed and gave the name her debit card was registered under. The man was still holding out the pass cards. She considered not taking them but decided she'd really been stupid enough for one day. If she didn't go along, they'd probably suspect something and take the two of them to the nearest mutant center and register them by force. Her DNA was probably still on record—maybe Mystique's too. It would be quite the pickle to explain how a _dead_ mother and daughter pair had suddenly reappeared with the roles switched. She took the pass cards.

She was handed an expensive copy of _Huck Finn_ and told to get out. She slung the bags of Risty's clothes over one shoulder carelessly, not bothering to pretend the weight affected her now. She took one of Risty's impressive hands in her gloved one. "Care ta change back?" she asked, but the girl shook her head.

"Not until people stop breaking the Rule."

"You'll be like that forevah, Darlin'," she sighed. "Let's go. Ah'm sorry the mall turned out so rotten."

"It was okay. Can I have more pizza?"

Rogue managed a weak laugh.

XXX

Over pizza at a parlor down the road—and they didn't use the pass cards to getbetter service—Rogue asked Risty, "You wanna go on a road trip, hon? No people. Just us, a car, old uncensored songs"—she realized the kid had absolutely no interest and switched tactics—"pizza for three meals a day…"

"I wanna go." The girl smiled winningly. She even got rid of the muscles arms, though she still seemed attached to the blue hair. Well, that was that. She was going. But only after they cleared out and bought the girl underwear at the nearestTarget did Risty ask, "Where are we going?"

Rogue smiled. "To get your brothers and sisters."

* * *

**Repeat: College Paper. Must focus all writing ability on it**—**not _Cloning Evolution_. **

**On a lighter note: **Let me relate to you something **freaky**. Takes a little explaining, but the coincidences are scary.

For a Harry Potter fic, I made up this character. He has several names throughout the story: _Dobbin, "Fen," _and_ Fenrir Albtraum Svartálfar._

I made up Fen.  
Fenrir sneaked in because I was naming lots of characters after gods and wanted Fen to be short for something.  
Dobbin is the namesake of Dobby, the House Elf.  
Albtraum is German for nightmare (the kid has nightmares),  
and Svartálfar is Norse for "Black Elves" (the kid's a house Elf).

I did all that on purpose. _Here's the weird, coincidental part**s** I've recently learned__:  
_  
"Fen" is swampland (& where that Hat says Slytherin comes from); Fen ends up being sorted into Slytherin (don't ask how).  
"Dobbin" actually means "work horse;" I named a house elf with horse-like ears "Work-Horse."  
Fenrir is this wolf-god who gets bound by this magical chain; my Fen gets bound with this magical chain/collar!  
"Albtraum," directly translated, means "**elf** dream!"  
_Dammit, could these names get any more accidentally loaded with meaning?_

_P.S.:_ I've just discovered that the names Dobbin and Fenrir both appear in THE SIXTH HARRY POTTER BOOK.  
**"_…Gaah!"_**


	4. Consider the Ethics

Am writing this from the back of an SUV in Chicago traffic two hours into the start of a LONG car trip (therefore I'm bored and TICKED that I'm wasting a lovely, no-school Friday in a car!)

Yes, yes, I know. Stop grousing and start typing the story…god knows I've got time to do it…hey, looky, I can see the Sears Tower from here! And I will for another two hours…

ANSWERS TO READERS' QUESTIONS:  
_  
**How the arm got lodged in an undersea crevice:** _(Freud: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.") _  
"_Artistic license?"_ Okay, I was not paying attention to the episode where Mystique shattered. I saw it from the corner of my eye and did a double take. IN MY MIND'S EYE, the X-Mansion grounds include a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (Bayville). The gazebo Rogue pushes Mystique off of is on that cliff. The statue shattered on the rocks below where the waves crash in, and some pieces fell into the sea. (**Conceivably, the force of a wave could then have lodged a piece in the cliff face.) **That is how my brain remembers it happening, and that's the story I'm sticking to. If it makes people feel better, I'll write the scene and stick it in somewhere. _

**_Why the Arm grabbed Rogue:_** (BWB: "…but the rest of the time, it's referring to a man's pants!")  
_Mystique was alive when the statue shattered. Frozen in stone like that, she didn't have time to "die," so the arm was still alive when turned back into flesh.  
**I will let the reader decide if Mystique's arm was trying to attack or comfort her… or if it was merely a dying appendage reacting to stimuli. **_

* * *

XXX

_Cloning Evolution_

_Step 4: Consider the Ethics _

XXX

Risty had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, reverting to her natural shape. Though her pants now came to her knees and her tiny shirt bared her entire midriff, her long limbs fit through the child's clothes with room to spare. It struck home how thin she was. Rogue glanced at her from occasionally, visions of the girl scoffing down entire veggie pizzas. Other times, she just looked, taking in Risty's smooth, blue features. She had baby skin, unmarked by age or worry. No wrinkles. No fingerprints. Cradling _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ in her arms like a baby, she almost resembled a statue of the Virgin.

Rogue tried not to think of statues, but it was the only way to describe Risty. She was like polished stone, carved by master's hands but still lacking the complexities of human flesh. Her skin also had the look of rock that had been worn smooth by water, though her months submerged in a glorified fish tank may have had something to do with that.

Unlike a statue, though, Risty's smoothness meant she was an unfinished work. As her powers were developed, she would become a more complex being. But what exactly would she be carved into, and by whom? The Beauty or the Beast?

Rogue sighed, knowing she would be plagued by such thoughts straight over three state lines. She was right.

There wasn't anything she could do about it, either. She was as much a passenger on this trip as Risty. The only difference was, she couldn't afford to fall asleep. If she did, a crash into a telephone pole was imminent. Or the mind occupying her thoughts would break through the mental barriers and grasp her body's controls. She would prefer to crash.

So she followed the mind's driving directions—south—and had absolutely no trouble staying awake.

Thinking about her destination was enough to keep her awake for days.

XXX

The old traveling circuses had wintered in the Deep South, particularly in Florida and Georgia, where the semi-tropical climate agreed with the exotic animals. The Gladring Circus had been one of the few that survived long enough to witness the rebirth of the Big Tops as an American pastime. Only, in their reincarnation they had been renamed Freak Shows. Proudly.

Gladring had been the proudest.

Now its wintering grounds were too much oversized litter disgracing several acres of backwater, southern Georgia. Rogue left the car on the dirt road within an overgrown patch of autumn shade and let the unwelcome memories guide her. Steps light, she wandered through the undergrowth into a gray, immolated clearing. Her feet stopped abruptly, and her hand lashed out to grasp whatever support it could find.

The mind inside hers was reeling as the bright memory of organ music and laughter was replaced with one of rusted shrapnel and ashen earth. It always happened. Memory was the only thing the homeless minds inside her had to hold on to. They needed it to prove that they were real and the prison inside her head was only their fleeting nightmare. So when one of their memories was overlaid by one of hers, they bitched like all Hell.

The one in the mental limelight had been a quick rising officer in the F.O.H. ranks towards the end of the war. He was actually the last person she'd sucked for information. Magneto had taken over the day after in the sort of fell swoop that only fictional criminal masterminds monologued about pulling off—right before they were thwarted by the valiant heroes. Only in this story, the plan went off without a hitch, and the heroes were faced with the ultimatum of join him or die. Rogue had opted for option C, disappearing into the night with nothing but the clothes on her back, a faked death, and an F.O.H. officer screaming in her head for the Devil (her) to release him from Hell (also her).

He was right about the Hell part, anyway. To explain, her more recent absorptions were always more to the front of her mind, and staying off-radar required a no-absorption policy on her part. In short, Officer Rosenheimer had enjoyed being the second-in-command of her head for nearly a decade. He used the position to make her life Hell whenever possible. Payback, he called it. To him, she was a demon come to torment his soul.

She was a mutant to boot, so he felt no remorse in trying to beat her to death in her own mind when he found his fond memory of the Gladring Freak Show replaced with a burnt shell.

Rogue shoved Officer "Rose"—her personal thorn-in-side—back into his cell and stepped into the remains of the dead circus. Her hand slipped from the singed sign she had been supporting herself with. The blue and black paint on the large wooden board was faded, but the pointed eared demon wreathed in a cloud of smoke was still visible. He snarled at onlookers, held back from throttling them only by a technological collar and chains.

In cheery gold letters it read _'Welcome to Gladring Freak Show.'_

Mr. Rose fought with her as she entered the fairgrounds, trying to make her see his memory instead of reality. Milling people and food stands flickered in and out of view. A half-naked, orange-scaled woman performed a spectacular twenty-foot acrobatic twist, only to vanish before she touched ground. The man was most stubborn about the Big top, but occasionally the illusion would break.

The enormous tent had been torn asunder. The vertical support poles still towered into the air, blue canvas bound to each top. The ragged cloth hung, creating a dagger-like point from each pole with curved, downward arches in between. From a distance, the broken tent seemed a gaping circular mouth with blue razor-sharp teeth rising from the earth to swallow everything good in the world.

In the next instant, it turned back into a brilliant blue pagoda of good, clean fun with golden flags billowing smartly in the gentle breeze.

XXX

As she meandered, turning slowly, trying to find her bearings, she found her feet had carried her into ruins of the big top. Or rather, Officer Rose had. She stood on the slightly warped, metal bleachers circling the ring. Again Rose seized her attention. She dropped into the rusted seat, suddenly remembering a past she had never experienced.

The jeers and booing roared into her ears. Her own throat felt raw from it. The spotlights came on, and a shout of anticipation rose through the crowd as hundreds of necked craned upward. Pinned under the lights, a small, cubic cage gleamed and dangled from just below the tent's zenith. A shape huddled within the bars. Nothing happened. The shouts grew insistent as a man in a blue top hat milked the crowd. He was a master. At his direction, the audience booed and laughed derisively, and then fell silent with a single gesture from his gloved hand. There wasn't a drum roll, not even an expectant breath as the seconds ticked by.

Only one sound was heard in the immense area. An accented, baritone voice filtered down from above, pleading softly in a tongue few in the audience knew. As the moment stretched, the same foreign words repeated again, then again. The beginning, almost staccato in desperation seemed to pierce her ear drums every time. _"Mutter Goddess—"_

The cage fell to pieces in an instant. He plummeted. Rogue's heart slammed against her ribcage even as a whoop issued from Rose's throat. Tumbling forever with no safety net below, the man clutched at air with scarred, three-fingered limbs, the flash of silver around his neck. The ringleader was heard to chuckle as a taunt tightrope came up with a snap. The flailing victim of gravity latched on with no little relief and swung around in a graceful arc until he came to stand upon the narrow wire.

The ringleader's hand slid towards a switch on his belt, and the man quickly took a bow amid a chorus of boos as the spotlights swung to illuminate him. His body and dark leather pants bore the signs of heaving whipping. His one article of clothing was in tatters, and the scars lacerating his body had lightened or completely stripped his midnight blue fur in jagged, crisscrossed stripes. A dark tangle of curls obscured his face as he stood above the crowd, the picture of grace and defiance.

But anyone who had lived with him for any time knew his back never arched straight like that. He should have been taunting childishly. Instead he stood, dead silent, in that calculated pose. His gaze fixated on the ringleader as a few lucky members of the audience were allowed to take up pellet guts and open fire. He whirled into action as the rat-a-tat-tat began. He dodged the streams of stinging shot with graceful ease—too easily, it seemed, because the ringleader's hand strayed yet again to his belt.

The tormented acrobat threw himself unhesitatingly into one of the lines of fire.

He buckled, issued a small scream that didn't need to be faked, and clung desperately to the wire with all four limbs. His fur along his left side was now riddled with a yellow powder. The crowd cheered for the first time, and the little girl shooting yellow was awarded a prize.

Meanwhile, a clown act began on the ring floor with a few prat falls and fake blows. The children were amused, but the crowd only really got into it when the tightrope went slack and the furred acrobat allowed himself to fall down into the eager arms of the jokers with brawler's fists. For the rest of the act, the hits were real, and the audience went hysteric with laughter at the Amazing Nightcrawler's expense.

XXX

Rogue staggered from the stands, suddenly remembering herself. She murdered the laughter in her throat, making it die, and glared at the spot where the ringleader had stood. It was her fervent wish for him to still be alive, because she wanted so badly to kill him herself.

She looked up and sighed. No tent top, no cage, just an innocent, blue sky.

She shoved Rose into the deepest recess of her mind and stalked from the area. Broken amusement park rides flew past, and she tried to ignore the old circus train cars scattered throughout the grounds. Mutants had obviously been forced to live in them. The Nightcrawler had never been in one. He had been the star attraction. People came to gawk at him, and they wouldn't buy the Big Top show ticket if they could torment him from a tiny, painted cage.

Rose's memories showed her the back of the fairgrounds, and she slipped through the now obsolete security gate. The switch to an indoor setting was chilling. Rose's fragile grip on Rogue's reality slipped as she entered an area he had never seen. The faint memories of fun at the circus vanished. There was no glossing over this new place with a positive image. It was a prison.

There was the number of reasons why she knew the sixth cell was the one she had come for. It was the furthest away from the rest of the circus—furthest out of earshot. As per clichéd usual, some idiot had decided to write in another two 6s after the first number painted on the metal door. 666, brilliant.

Idiots.

The main reason she grasped the heavy steel door and wrenched it off its hinges was because of the view she got looking through the sliding, eyelevel slot. Someone was dead in there.

The corpse hung, held aloft by rusting chains. That was the censored way to explain it. A truer version involved the rotted remains of tendons and flesh loosely knitting the bones together so the body wouldn't fall apart in a heap on the floor.

The wrists were shackled, pulling his arms apart into a spread-eagled position. The silver collar had been attached to a length of chain so the head was never really allowed to fall. The skinless kneecaps hung a scant few inches above the stained concrete floor. Remains of the feet were tethered to the ground. A silt top hat lay nearby.

Judging by the shredded clothes on the back, the body had been whipped severely. Whether the beating was the actual cause of death, she didn't know. The glint of metal caught her eye, and she knelt to study the shiny tips of a many-tailed whip lying abandoned in the dust.

Metal.

Her mood soured. Taking a breath and holding it, she stepped forward to study the corpses' wrists. The steel bindings wound around the rotted flesh seamlessly without a hinge lock in sight. The metal was smooth in the way metal could only be when it had been manipulated like putty. The collar had been sealed in the same way.

She picked up the old top hat from the floor and began to crumple it as a voice inside of her reminded her that she had wanted to kill Nightcrawler's tormentor anyway. What did it matter if _he_ had done it for her?

Only everything. She looked at the dead ringleader. Instead of his family coming to save him from the man, Nightcrawler had been snatched from one monster into the jaws of another.

She turned away. Setting her jaw, she started to hunt through the cell for her quarry.

XXX

It wasn't there. Not in the cell, not in Mr. Gladring's personal office. Not anyplace. She growled as she reentered the fairgrounds. Her eyes roamed, searching for a place she hadn't looked. Thankfully, Rose had stopped trying to hide reality with his memory, and she was able to study her surroundings without the distraction of a ghost circus. In fact, he was being unnaturally quiet.

It made her suspicious.

Without warning, she threw Rose into the deepest recesses of her mind and spun around in a tight circle. She was rewarded with the sight of the remains a small, ornate building popping into existence before her eyes. The bastard, he had been hiding it from her.

As her mental self beat the teeth out of his, she stalked to the ruins and began throwing aside broken lumber. As she worked, she unearthed several objects. Shattered glass teardrops, large scraps of snakeskin that had been peeled off a human's hide—the normal mutant-themed souvenirs. And then there was the trapdoor.

Rose screamed with rage. She took that to mean she had found what she was looking for.

She had to wrench it out of the frame to open it. At least that meant no one had been down there in a decade. The steps she saw as she peered in looked about as safe as cannonballing into a live volcano. She floated down into the underground, not willing to put her weight on them. The first sight that greeted her was the pickled cat's-eyes of a mutant resting on a shelf. The pupils, the liquid they were submerged in, and the glass of their jar all gleamed in the light that streamed in from the open trapdoor.

If the place had ever had electricity, the chance to use it was ten years gone. Rogue slowly drifted into the horrid little freak museum, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the dim. She wanted nothing more than to avert her gaze from the various body parts drifting in the large jars, but necessity—and horrified fascination—made her study the contents of each.

A brutal raping of Rose's memories revealed he had visited the place with a fellow officer. His friend had been interested in purchasing a souvenir. She grimaced as she started to notice numbers and dollar signs scrawled onto many of the jars. The back shelf didn't come with price tags. Whether that meant they weren't for sale or there wasn't enough room on the jar to write all the zeroes, she wasn't sure.

The head of a humanoid lizard on the shelf. The whole section seemed decapitation-happy. Only one item wasn't a severed head.

Curling in the jar, the blue tail with the spaded tip looked more like a snake.

XXX

Hundreds of miles to the north, a figure clutched a rosary and began, _"Mutter Goddess…_

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**My take on Kurt in the Circus…yep, not fun. Could've gone on, but I figured I'd stop with the tail. Yes, my evilness knows no bounds. Poor blue baby…

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**Here's the READER RESPONSES:**

**Wild Card Reaf: **_Good Jesus! And I thought **I** wrote long reviews. …Are you sure I can't convince you to marry me? It's legal in Spain. (I'm **kidding**, of course. But, seriously, you are the BEST!) _**…and you realize I MUST do the potty-training chapter now.**

**Anna Marie Raven: **_The STATS feature is a BLESSING to FicWriter-Kind. Basically, it's on the column of options when you sign on to your account. You click it, and it pulls up all the statistics on your stories and yourself. For example, by clicking on the "Hits" hyperlink for this story, I can see…the page for my Ch. 3 was "hit" 52 times (as of now). Theoretically, that means 52 people are reading this story.  
**Of course, that makes me wonder why less than 1 in 10 of my readers choose to review… **_

**Rogue14: **_You may think Risty calling Rogue "Mom" is cute, but think about what that makes McCoy… Call the Child Protection Services!_

**GothikStrawberry:** _My old readers are coming back to me! Yay! _(You're right. That argument will be far from over.)

**Velvet Shadow:** _And readers are checking out more than one of my fics! This calls for a _deliriously_ happy moment.

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**TELL ME IF I MADE ANY MISTAKES! IT'S 2 A.M. IN AN OUTTA STATE HOTEL ROOM. ...please?**


	5. Rise from the Grave

'**_On the road again…it feels so good to be on the road again—NOT!'_** **Oh, please God! Let me out of this car from Hell! (I glance to the right, and there is—LITERALLY—the recently burnt remains of a Volkswagen "Bus" sitting on the side of the road. Bubbling, melted tires and all.) …On second thought, this heavenly mode of transport is just fine, thank you! **

**(The temperaturekeeps rising. I swear the Devil has something to do with this.)

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A quick chapter, written when sitting cramped in a car behind a hysteric three-year-old. By the way, that was a quality disclaimer. I'm not to be held responsible!

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XXX

_Cloning Evolution_

_Step 5: Rise from the Grave _

XXX

A host of glaring eyes focused on the inspector as he stepped into the room, then softened when they realized who it was. Remy LeBeau smiled subtly and handed Derek a clipboard. "Be a pal, an' fill de papers wit' pretty marks?" Derek shot a look at the other men in the room, who grinned and waved dismissively. He nodded and wasted no time in writing out the form so it said their unit had the hardest workers on the bloody planet. And they should get a raise.

The three other men, visibly relaxed, turned away from their work to greet the Security Head. It was a well-known fact that Remy was about as serious as a clown, especially when it came to his job. No one quite knew why Magneto had appointed him for it. The most widely accepted theory was that it was a reward for loyalty; there were old clips that showed Remy had been with Magneto from the very beginning. The most rare of crazy of rumors said Remy was the head of a mafia family that ran American crime—and a good chunk of the international part, too. Why that would make him the American government's Security Head was a mystery, though.

Remy grabbed a seat and perched behind Chase and his multitude of computer screens. "What you workin' on, boy?"

Trick question, really. Chase only ever did one thing: "chase" after a certain crime syndicate that the government wanted dead. Of course all organized crime needed to be taken down, but a certain group had made itself Enemy Number 1 with Magneto's regime. The Assassins' Guild had tipped off the previous government about an extensive network of mutant safe houses in return for immunity and the occasional blind eye. The mutant protectors' headquarters had been located in New Orleans. On Ash Wednesday, a good chunk of the American Army broke in and staged a massacre.

But now the government was pro-mutant, and the tables had turned on The Assassins' Guild. The teams that chased after them were death squads, ordered only to take a few key persons alive. Chase's job was to track down the locations of the group's cells. It was more like his obsession. His big brother and father had been in one of the mutant safe houses. Though normal, his mother and he had been in another. Getting the actual mutants out of their house hadn't stopped a mob from trying to burn it down with them in it. Even back then, the world had realized the family members of mutants had the recessive genes for it themselves. They'd been forced to go into hiding as well. Only, their safe house had remained safe when their loved ones' burned.

Being mutant family, Chase had managed to get a job in the new government's security branch. He had used the resources and his limited free time to track down the monsters who were responsible for his brother and father's deaths. Then Remy LeBeau came in and told him to stop this craziness and just focus on taking down The Assassins' Guild. It had been his job ever since.

Remy asked him if he'd found anything new. Chase shook his head. It was the same. Some of the cells they knew about were being put under the microscope instead of flat-out destroyed, but no new people came in, and no one left for a different cell. Mind readers in the death squads said none of the enemy ever knew of a cell outside their own. They were dead in the water.

He received a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder from Remy before the man moved on.

Gupta and Arnold's desk was next. At the computer, one dark hand strayed over a chalk white one to tap a few pertinent keys. On their screen, a girl ducking through a train depot's crowd blazed into sharp focus. "Gotcha," they smirked together.

Remy's head appeared between the two slightly older men's. "Caught somun', Salt'n'Pepper?" he asked, using his name for them. Gupta and Arnold were as good a pair as salt and pepper—and they looked the parts too. Arnold's dark, coarse hair had turned a peppery gray with age. Gupta was an albino. They were sweet men, minor mutants who had never known they were until the blood work was done. Arnold had simply been notorious for hunches. The same went for Gupta and what he called his "little lucks." Their powers combined and the skills they had garnered from the Information Age made them perfect for the tricky job of tracking down people who didn't want to be found.

Gupta had once compared his work to shooting silent moving targets blindly. And then he put on a blindfold, picked up the offered shotgun, and started gunning down the wooden bull's-eye ducks at the booth on the fairgrounds. Arnold still had that giant teddy bear stashed somewhere.

Arnold pointed at the girl on the screen. "Unregistered mutant. She's been headed west sporadically, bound for either L.A. or Mexico—but I'm guessin' Canada."

Remy nodded and told them to alert the Northern Border Patrol if she slipped from the radar. "So what's her story?" he asked, cocking his head. "Lil' Kentucky farm fille bred an' raised t'believe mutants be devils? Starts pickin' up tractors one-handed and panics?"

Gupta's mouth popped open. "How'd you guess?"

"Didn't Remy evah tell you he was psychic?"

Arnold only smirked and used a dark, manicured finger to trace Remy's gaze down to the case file lying open on the desk. An eyewitness account described Kylie Barton throwing aside an antique John Deer like Styrofoam after the tractor slid off a ramp at a local fair and rolled onto her father. Kylie's information, including her home address, was listed at the top of the open page.

The pale Gupta shook his head. "Remy, you're the best con this side of the Pacific—and that's no compliment."

"Says you," the Cajun replied. Then he paused and frowned. "You sayin' there's a man better than Remy in Asia?"

Arnold snickered. "His mam's not going to appreciate you callin' her a man."

After Arnold swore ten ways he'd make Gupta tell some stories about his conniving mother on a later date, Remy meandered back to the last man in the room.

Derek slid the filled-out clipboard back to Remy. He wore the fearful awed smile that all youngsters had when they looked up at one of the old war mutants. Remy pulled over a chair and sat, positioning himself at a calculated distance that was friendly without being too close for comfort. "Lemme guess," he grinned, "You're stuck wit' de boring work."

Derek shrugged noncommittally, but he didn't disagree.

"What they got you doin'?"

He pointed to his secondhand, slightly cracked screen. "I'm supposed to be pulling together profiles for mutants we'll be registering soon."

"You make the one for that lil' Barton fille?"

Derek nodded. "At least that was an interesting one. Mostly it's trying to get a word in edgewise as a mom babbles on the phone about how she 'always knew' her little Billy was 'special.'"

Remy did not bother to hide his sympathetic wince.

"I'm having trouble with this one case, though," he admitted with a sigh. "I can't even figure the identity." There were hints of shattered self-esteem in his voice.

"Don't get hung up on it," the Cajun advised, "We all get our hard'uns." He scooted forward and cocked his head at the computer screen. Pointing at the little blue-haired girl in the security footage, he asked, "Dis her?"

"And her mom." A red-haired woman roughly Remy's age was gestured at blithely. Derek rolled the recording forward, and then slowed it where the woman picked up a large assortment of bags one-handed and slung them behind her shoulder. "See. Those shopping bags have to weigh at least forty pounds together. No muscle tension in her arm at all—might as well be holding air. I'm tentatively putting her in at Class C strength." He rewound the footage a few minutes. "The daughter's more tricky. She turned herself into some storybook character to protect her mom."

"Protect?" Remy repeated.

"The woman exploded in the middle of a bookstore. They heard her halfway across the mall. Security moved in quiet her down, and the girl snatched and bashed a stunner to pieces with her bare hands. Staged her own little tantrum." He allowed a smile. "You can tell the two of them are related. They've got the same temper."

Remy gestured at the screen. "If you don't mind…"

"Oh, of course." Derek sat a little straighter and started the recording.

'**_Yer censorin' tha books _Non-Mutants _can read!'_**

The younger man turned the volume down a second too late. He looked at Remy, whose face had gone white. "I'm sorry," he stammered, but the Cajun cut him off coldly.

"Crank it back up."

He blinked. "What?"

"Turn de volume up. Now."

Dark eyes slid his way. He bit back a yelp and obeyed. Remy closed his eyes and leaned forward, listening to the woman's voice.

'_What's wrong with _The 'ventures of Huck Finn?_ Is it because it teaches that it's_ wrong _ta treat some people like dirt, just 'cause they're supposedly born "inferior?" That_ all _people are human beings?'_

That accent, the 'human rights' doctrine, the affectionate nickname of that damned Mark Twain book—no, it couldn't be. He reached past Derek to pause the footage at a good shot of the woman's face. Red hair, blue eyes, pale skin, no freckles. He didn't immediately recognize the face, but the watch on her wrist was another story. He switched the view to infrared. The shape of her face changed, and he took a breath. "Derek, match the features picked up on the heat scan against the full mutant registry—dead and alive.

The young man balked. "I can't do that. This computer wont—"

"Use the mainframe."

Before he could protest, Remy punched in the access code. The lights dimmed and a projection screen on one wall flickered to life. Sinking low in his seat, Derek matched the points and planes of the woman's face and pulled the data through the mainframe's search engine. He winced as the other computers in the room stalled, knowing this was happening throughout the complex as the search took top priority, stealing computing power.

All four men in the room stared at Remy as he stood and glared at the projected screen. He wasn't the carefree Remy they knew. This one had a rock hard jaw line and glowing eyes that his mirrored sunglasses failed to hide. He was terrifying. They would rather die than be forced to meet his gaze then. They would rather have a staring contest with the Cyclops.

They jumped when a chime issued from a speaker. A profile came up on the screen, covered by a large window that read **'MATCH FOUND.'**

"Delete that," Remy snapped. "Let me see her face."

Derek froze a moment before scrambling to get rid of the box. It disappeared, and Remy's face went slack when saw the woman's unobstructed profile picture. Beneath the shot of a shyly smiling auburn beauty were the words "_Rogue, The—X-Man—_**DECEASED.**_"_

The other men showed shock in their own respective ways. The Rogue had died during a last ditch assassination attempt on Magneto at the war's end. Children grew up on stories of her. She had been one of the original X-Men. An orphan, the X-Men had become her family. She could never bear to leave the group, even after its corruption, even when her adopted brother left, even though the love of her life was one of Magneto's top mutants. Finally, on the night of Magneto's victory, several of the corrupt X-Men stormed the Brotherhood's base and nearly managed a coup d'etat. Rogue intervened. She had shielded the leader, taking the poison splatter-bomb meant for him. She died a hero.

It was the sort of true story Hollywood prayed for, but no one was willing to touch it until the government said a blockbuster film wouldn't be an attack on the woman's memory. It seemed they would be waiting a long time.

Consider all that—with the added twist that the woman might still be alive—and the men's shock made perfect sense.

Their sudden fear was also logical, for Remy growled, "Boys," and the dark room began to glow red. "Are we going to tell anyone what we've learned in this room?" he proceeded to ask softly.

Chase caught on first. "No, of course not." The Salt and Pepper pair was saying something similar a moment later. That left only one man unaccounted for.

"Derek?"

The young man found himself staring into demon eyes. "…N–Nn–o," he finally stuttered, "You want this quiet, m–my lips are sealed."

He cringed at the affectionate pat. "Good boy."  
The infernal lights went out. Remy nonchalantly exited the mainframe, and the room returned to normal. He glanced around at the men. "You boys have a new assignment. All of you," he added with a look to Chase. He wrenched Derek's screen around so they all could see the mall security footage of the woman and her daughter. "Find them," he ordered. "I want to know where to find them, _who_ they are—what the Hell is going on! You report only to me, or I will _explode_ you." His head cocked dangerously. "Any questions?"

Not a one.

XXX

Gambit was at his motorbike before he knew what happened. He jammed his helmet on, frowning. It was impossible. Rogue was dead; he had watched her be buried.

Hadn't he?

Only after straddling the bike did he remember that damned thing called responsibility. Part of him said Hell with it, but another part shrieked that he couldn't just up and leave. He pulled out a cell, compromising.

A minute later, he roared out of the garage.

XXX

'_Gone to pay some mo' last respects. Back in action t'morrah afternoon—Gambit.' _

Erik gestured for the secretary to delete Remy's brusque if chipper sounding message and then leave. When she was gone, he busied himself with a diplomatic entreaty from China. Asia had turned out to be far more tolerant of mutants than the increasingly Catholic Europe. He sighed. The last thing he had wanted was for religion to enter the equation. It only brought madness. European Catholic mutants had been killed in droves, often by their own hands, when the Pope deemed them satanic in nature.

Pushing Wagner into the limelight and revealing that he had quietly been ordained by the previous Pope had been the only way to stem the bloodshed. But now the world was dealing with two papacies, and Eric had an unwilling, furry, betrayed-feeling religious leader on his hands.

Religion was the thorn deeply imbedded in his side. He couldn't escape it, even now. The main issue the Chinese had was the worry that openly allying themselves with him would bring Europe's armies down upon them. It wouldn't be a problem if so many millions of idiots didn't believe one old man was the emissary of God.

He rested his head on his fist and watched hollow metal spheres bob in a small water fountain. Seemingly of their own, they rose into the air and began to circle each other aimlessly. Minutes passed like this. "I think it's time to visit my old friend," he sighed at last.

He stood, and a man who had been waiting in the corner opened the door for him. He ignored the bodyguard's look of hatred. After eleven years, it no longer held any amusement for him.

He nodded after he passed though the door. "Logan." The man shut it and followed a step behind Erik Lensherr, the Magneto.

XXX

"Rogue, where are we going?"

"To a graveyard up in New York. There's some folks there I need t'pay mah respects to."

XXX

"…Can I eat some pizza first?"

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…**Well, _THAT_ turned out…erm, interesting…like always, it seems. Have I not done something shocking-ish every chapter? Scott's attempted suicide, McCoy showing Risty how to kill—well, I guess Ch. 3 was _okay_—Kurt's circus days, THIS… ****

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**REVIEW RESPONSES: **_(updated kinda fast, so not a whole lot of people've had a chance to read CH 4 yet)_

**giveGODtheglory: **Funny you should mention clonings gone wrong. ...Just wait a few chapters...

WAVES TO EVERYBODY. LOVE YOU! GONNA GO SLEEP IN MY OWN BED NOW! ...AFTER I DO MY COLLEGE CLASS HOMEWORK...**DAMMIT!**


	6. Border on the Psychotic

Woops. 'kay, I'm back. After a whopping…oh, only 6 days. Hmm, not as bad as I thought. Anyway, I've been assaulted by non-X:Evo story ideas and dragged to two Art Institutes in under a week, so the chapter-writing thing didn't happen until today.

…Well, now I must take a moment and thank the **70-ish** people who follow this story and put up with me, especially the 20 that joined in on chapter five! And before anyone asks, it's called the Stats feature. Coincidentally, this statistical readout of fic information also reminds me how few _reviews_ I have…

Kidding. I'm not one of those writers who harangue readers for reviews. And if I should ever refuse to update until I get so many reviews, my Kurt-loving friend Mell has permission to leak my home address so all y'alls can come beat me to a bloodied pulp…assuming she doesn't beat you to it…

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And speakin' of reviews, here's the **(terrifyingly long)** **REVIEW RESPONSES: **

**)))giveGODtheglory(((— **(Thanks for reviewing more than once.)

Breathe, hon. The cloning gone wrong (that happens a few chapters from now) is just to exact revenge on a character I Hate. _**And that reminds me… HEY, ABOUT SPYKE… DO I OOC HIS CLONE AND MAKE HIM COOL OR JUST MISCARRIAGE THE "FETUS"? …HE'D HAVE NORMAL HAIR AND CUTE FOREHEAD HORNS! **_

Hmm, and I think that's everythi_…hold the phone._ What do you mean, Logan had the metal put _back?_ When was it removed? And How? It's, like, grafted to the bones. I mean, unless **the bones in his body were torn out and he had to grow them back…EEEWWWW!

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**)))otak the Canadian(((— **

I just have to laugh every time I'm told my fan fiction is "original." Though, I must admit, I see your point. Originality is hard to find on this site. With X:Evo there's always Romy or a slumber party—often both. That I can handle, but it gets worse. _So much worse, I can't mention it without kicking this fic's rating up to _—_M_—

Let me just tell the entire site somethin' before I come back to you. **'EY! READER PEOPLE: _GET A CLUE_ AND GET A _FRESH_ STORYLINE! _THANK YOU._**

Woops, sorry M'luv, you've stumbled across a pet peeve. Mmm, now where were we? Ah, yes. 'Horror without gory details.' As a writer fond of gore, details, and such, I'm glad someone's appreciating that I'm holding back.

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**)))skin2skincontact(((— **You're a boy! —Jumps _Him(!)_— Thank you for adding diversity to the site! I wonder if any other reviewers are guys…

Um, ahem: _'the others come in **&** it branches off from there.'_ Funny you should write that. I'm of the opinion that if this fic goes on, I'm splitting it up so each clone gets his/her own fic. Of course, I'm not going to do that yet, simply because I haven't written that much material. Grand plans are only good if you _work_ towards them. So I'm _work_ing, I'm _work_ing.

It's gratifying that people look forward to my updates. It proves that one needn't cliffhang chapters. Anyone else hate it when a writer does that non-stop?

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**)))WolvGambit Le Diable Blanc(((— **Sorry. Yours was a short review, so the response is shorT. "Thanks for reviewing."

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**)))Velvet Shadow(((— **A loyal reviewer. I…I'm just so happy!

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**)))ishandahalf(((— **Okay, I'm POSITIVE I've read that quick bunny on crack line before. …but _where?_ Hmm…

Yes, slightly dark and disturbing is like my trademark. My nom de plume is the Bone White Butterfly for a reason…unlike _'ish-and-a-half,'_ which I still don't get after reading your bio thing. Your mission is indeed accomplished. …And idiots' mispronunciation of words is a little annoying, yes.

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…I'M DONE! WAHOO! OKAY, I'VE **_GOT_** TO START WRITING SHORTER REVIEW RESPONSES.

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_**I'm SORRY, but the writing in this chapter seems so damn bad to me. Too complicated. And that mean's you'll end up tearing your hair out trying to understand it. …Okay, I'm going to try and edit it ONE MORE TIME…and then you're on your own!**_

_**Could I suggest you read this chapter SLOW?**_

_**XXX**_

_**Cloning Evolution**_

_**Step 6: Border on the Psychotic**_

_**XXX**_

The small cemetery in Jersey was a quiet one. The one side that faced civilization was protected by a tall hedge, and forest hemmed in the rest. The gravestones didn't arrange themselves in straight rows, preferring to clump into territorial plots where, on occasion, entire family trees had been laid to rest. A disused little church sat off to one side, made from the same weathered stone as many of the grave markers that it watched over. Its cellar doors were closed, but the usual brass lock was missing.

Within the underground room, cobwebs ruled. The only light came from a grimy window set a few inches above ground level—and from two glowing eyes. Remy LeBeau stood in the little disturbed dust. Those eyes of his moved about, taking in the details that had grown vague in his mind over the years. Things had changed, of course—the glass shards had been swept away and the mattress in the corner had been dragged out—but many aspects were the same. The reddish brick lining the inner room still crumbled. The dark leafless branches of the old tree could still be seen through that small rectangular window. He found the energy for a faint smile. The dim light still made the fragile spider's silk glow.

He had always imagined her to be like one of those spider webs. Soft as silk and beautiful, trapping any fool being who touched her. And yet, when the creature was too strong, she had been rent apart.

With a sigh, he remembered that last dread night on the eve of Magneto's victory. She had found him in the stronghold's center. The question of how she had managed to secret herself in died when she begged him to escape, to leave everything behind. It was their same old argument, but this time she had taken his side of it. In turn, he should have shied away, saying he couldn't abandon his family. But, for all that Magneto's soldiers called themselves Brothers, they weren't family. So he had asked, _'When?'_

'_Now!'_

'_But only wit' you.'_

She had stared at him for a long, breathless moment before bowing her head. She took his hand and ran. Then the explosions began.

Scant seconds later, they had been separated. The last thing he heard her say was to keep going and meet up with her on the outside. It had been the logical thing to do, but his heart overrode his brain functions, and he had barreled through the halls in search of her. The opposition he had come up against was fuzzy in his mind. X-Soldiers, fingertips, an all-pervading crimson glow, explosions in his wake—that was the only memory he had of the hallways. It simply wasn't important enough to recall correctly. The foyer, in comparison, had everything that mattered to him strewn across the floor.

Rogue lay in a twisted way on her back at the foot of the stair. Thick, poisonous goop gleamed on the floor beneath her as her eyes fixed unwavering on the chandelier above.

Accounts varied. Some said the battle ended when she died, others argued it was when he fell to his knees and took her in his arms, mindless of the poison. Depending on the witness, she had either lunged at Magneto as he stood on the steps, only to be caught in the crossfire—or she had thrown herself into the line of fire to save his life. A few souls even argued that she been hurled into the area already dead. Her getting hit with the poisonous splatter bomb meant for Magneto had only been a lucky coincidence.

Remy hadn't cared about the official story at the time. It was the unfairness of it all that ate away at his mind. They had finally agreed. They would be their own side, not X-Men or Brotherhood, just two people together. And then she went and got killed. His powerful and beautiful fille, destroyed by a stray bit of goo. It was unfair. The hows and whys of it were meaningless.

Or, at least they had been. Politics forced that to change. A law was passed. Those who had opposed Magneto were labeled traitors and denied many human rights. About the only thing they could get a fair trial, though that could be argued when certain cases were decided solely by Magneto's whim.

Remy had focused on that, and on the denial of funeral rites.

The measure had originally been passed to further cripple the Friends of Humanity, which still had a decent following along the Bible Belt and in Catholic communities. Bodies of known members were torn from their graves as their families and communities watched. They either burned on the spot or were left to rot in piles. The psychological blow had only strengthened the resolve of the most fervent. But those who had joined because of an eloquent church leader, or family, or peer pressure—or the ever-popular desire improve one's chances with an F.O.H. love interest—well, they had simply dropped out and pretended like it had never happened. The F.O.H. all but died in a few weeks.

For once, a law actually did what it was supposed to. But then its words were twisted, and it also came to apply to any X-Man who opposed Magneto, and then to any rogue mutant. Any mutant who hadn't joined with Magneto to celebrate his victory was called traitor. Those that had died fighting against him in the war were refused burial.

While this had been happening, the argument was still out on whether Rogue had died in an attempt to save the mutant leader or to kill him. Remy had refused to allow the fate of his fille's remains to be decided by debaters who didn't even know her.

So he had gone to Magneto and dug himself deep into the man's debt for the third time. The hole he was in was now far too large to ever get out of, but with Rogue gone he had no place else to go anyway. So in his subtle way, Magneto had ended the debates and, with a few truths, wove a story for the public that could hold up to a battering ram.

The Rogue had been torn between sides from the start. It had only grown worse as she was forced to either be loyal to her X-Man family or embrace the love she had found with her enemy. When the Brotherhood won, and the renegade X-Soldiers staged an assassination attempt, she had been forced to choose. In the end, she intercepted a projectile containing lethal poison meant for Magneto and died. It had been impossible to pry her from her love's arms for hours. Denying the heroic woman a proper burial would be a crime to both her memory and the man with such devotion to her.

That was the summary of the stirring eulogy Magneto gave in his new capitol of Genosha. The Rogue herself was quietly buried in a graveyard in New Jersey, and no one breathed a word when the Nightcrawler gave her a Catholic funeral. Nor had they even looked at Remy LeBeau as he stood before the casket, and then walked away in the middle of its descent into the grave. He had still clutched an array of flowers in his hand, but by the time he reached the small church across the field, he had discarded every bloom except for a single lily.

It was not a white funeral lily, but a vibrantly orange, black-spotted, curling explosion of petals. He had twirled the tiger lily in his fingers as he descended down into the cellar, crunching shattered glass into mere shards with his boots and paying no mind to the sticky stain of cheap wine spilled over the old floorboards. He had left the flower there in the dark place as a reminder. She had been there not so long ago, gleaming bright in the shadows, as dazzling and alive as a tiger lily.

Now, a decade later, Remy stood in the same cellar. A lily was clenched in one hand. Sad, confused thoughts trickled through his mind, and, unthinking, he whispered them into the dim. The words gave the place the air of a madhouse.

"_Why? Ten years, Rogue, an' you still don' leave me be.  
"An' who's de girl? She looks old 'nough, she could be…  
"It's crazy, Cherie. Dead filles do no' throw tantrums in de bibliotheque…  
"Is dis torture, a shapeshifter forcin' Remy to see your face…  
"…but den why de disguise? De watch…illusion, why hide behind it?" _

He shook his head.

"_It's no' you Rogue, canna be.  
"—Dead an' buried—  
"Why d'you force-feed me wit' hope?  
"I've held your corpse—I know. _

"_You are dead, Rogue." _

His last words seemed to echo in the empty place. He threw the white funeral lily to the floor and stalked away, up the stairs to the cellar doors. But at the last moment, he stopped, and cast an unwilling glance at the corner where he had held her years ago. The traitorous question fell from his lips.

"…_Aren't you?"_

XXX

"Rogue, how long are we going to sit here?"  
"Don't complain. That's two boxes full of pizza sittin' on your lap."

XXX

The car stopped in the shade outside the old wrought iron gates. The most youthful of its three occupants stepped out first, sullenly, into the sun and the northwesterly breeze.

He had the presence of a fighter. There was also a terrifying slenderness about him that made it hard to compare him to men with veins like ropes and heads dwarfed by their own biceps. There was only one thing about him that made him look the part of a warrior. Though he was thin, the man seemed to be made of nothing but muscle. Thin and corded like steel ropes, they wrapped compactly around his frame. Even the muscles in his eyes, the irises, were affected. Abnormally large, they had the effect of making his eyes seem a solid, deadly block of color when he slit them.

But when his eyelids twisted in the way they were now, he had the look of a lost child.

From inside the car, a polished yet steely voice spoke one word of warning. _"Move._"

He didn't budge for a long moment. Then, he suddenly moved to the side in a swift, yet spastic and unarticulated shuffle. He stopped just as abruptly, and there was a moment of floundering before he regained his balance. Steady on his feet once more, he rotated slightly to look at the elderly man who now stood in the spot he had vacated. Anyone who had seen a supermarket tabloid in the last two decades would recognize his face. This man was the Magneto.

His eyes had narrowed to slits.

The aged man returned his glare with a steady look of extreme indifference as the third, middle-aged man killed the car engine and stepped out from the vehicle. The driver glanced at the other two, his emotionless face hiding his thoughts about their awkward relationship—the uncaring father burdened with his loathing and obviously ill son.

After an agitated silence, the car doors suddenly slammed shut right as the gates wrenched open. "Wait there," Magneto ordered the other two, pointing through the gates of the cemetery at an old, stone church. The angry man damn near flew towards it while the driver followed at a more controlled, serene pace.

After watching the youth stumble to a stop scant inches before slamming into the church's outer wall, Magneto shook his head and started purposefully towards an area at the back of the cemetery.

XXX

The woman sprawled across the bench seat at the back of her car was a remarkable one. For one, she had managed to drive her vehicle off road through an incredibly dense stand of trees without scratching the paint. For another, she had lain on that seat for the better part of four hours, peering through the open car door with a pair of binoculars—the picture of patience.

The blue teenager squirming in the front passenger seat was another story. She spun around and pleaded, "Can we go—**_Now_**?" For the word "now" to be any more emphasized, it would need a brass band accompanying it.

The woman's unending patience was starting to wear _very_ thin. She now understood why it was wrong to play to God and artificially create life. With God's way, children had several years to learn at least _some_ patience. The clone in the front seat was, quite possibly, the most impatient being in existence.

"Rogue… Can we go now, **please?"**

This was more annoying than the "Are we there yet?" question—though she now had some clone-style experience with _that_ one too. Whatever had possessed her to take Risty on a car trip needed to die a very slow death. Ah, yes: McCoy. The thought of leaving Risty alone with him for two weeks had been too much to bear.

Rogue sighed. "You finished with your book, darlin'?"

"Yes."

"Read it again."

"But I already—"

"Read it again. You can never read a good book too many times."

A book was opened, at there came about a blessed silence. Everything in the car took on a certain stillness as well, marred only by the occasional flick of a page or the stretching of stiff limbs. A frightening number of discarded, empty pizza boxes could be found at the front of the vehicle. One half-covered a small chocolate cake on the driver's seat. The dessert was protected by a clear plastic dome and several warnings that slim blue fingers should stay far away.

When Rogue had bought the cake and some decorating icing at a cake store along the way, Risty had immediately asked what it was. This led to a short lecture on dessert. The girl had no idea what sweets were, seeing as the base was stocked only with food that McCoy deemed adequately nutritional. (A Rogue in disguise was often seen haunting a nearby diner.)

Upon learning about cake, the girl had been chockablock full of questions. _'Why is it good?' 'And why does it make you fat?' 'What are lethal calories, and why were they the answer to both my first two questions?'_

'_Why did you write the word Charlie on the cake?' 'Who is Charlie?' 'What's a nickname?' 'Oh, so who is Charles Xavier?' 'Why is his name on the cake?' 'What's a Birthday?' 'What's a birth?'_

On that long stretch of road, Rogue had begun to long for the simple question of—  
_'Are we there yet?'_  
—and managed to jinx herself.

In a likewise fashion, she had foolishly told Risty they could leave the stand of trees _when she said so,_ causing the girl to ask "Can we go now?" every few minutes.

She sighed and looked again through the binoculars. She got a good view of the cemetery's gates flying open "on their own." Magneto had arrived. She turned to look at the driver's seat, where Charles Xavier's birthday cake sat. Right on schedule.

She returned to her binoculars and watched as a group of three men split. Magneto's path took him towards a collection of graves she very much wanted to know the location of, but she found her gaze focusing instead on the two other men. At varying paces, they had taken off towards the old church. She locked onto the slower of the two and recognized him easily. A man that big had to be Piotr Rasputin, the Colossus. He looked good. He had that look that said he was satisfied with his life—or at least had resigned himself to it without too much trouble.

She aimed her binoculars at the last of the trio. He was a wraith of a man, emaciated despite his muscular physique. Anorexic was the word she was searching for. She was reminded of Risty, who had only survived her last growth spurt because of life support and even now fit into children's clothes designed for little girls half her height. The young-looking man should not have been walking. It was something of a relief when he stumbled by the church's side. It showed he was human.

Still, he seemed far too healthy.

Her gaze trained up to his face. She frowned and had the electronic binoculars zoom in. Something about him was bothering her. And for good reason. When his eyes were clearly in sight, she gasped and dropped her electronic eyes. Horrified, she whispered his name.

"_Logan?"_

XXX

* * *

_God, I **hate** breaking up the cemetery scene like this, but…it's going to be REALLY long, and this is the best stopping point for _quite _a while. Forgive the semi-cliffy, please. _

_Next chapter is still in the cemetery. It'll be posted soon…though I somehow have to work the writing around my Uni class final exam **and** get it uploaded before I visit a Chicago Art Institute next weekend…gah!_

Um…Logan has a male form of anorexia. Considering how bad the writing is this chapter, I thought I'd tell y'all that once more just in case you missed it. It's about control. He controls how much he exercises—and how little he eats—because doing so is the **only** way to feel like he has any control over his own life. Remember the way Magneto moves his body like he was a puppet? If that don't make you feel like a powerless victim, nothing else will.

I actually know a guy with this disorder. …Not the _"get-moved-around-like-puppet-because-of-metal-bones"_ part…but the lethal anorexia and control issues.

* * *

**Tiny Preview of Chapter 7: Clear it with God**

_Erik strolled towards a certain pair of headstones. They stood to the back of a large clump of graves that had an interesting history. Every person there had two things in common. They were the beloved dead of rich or powerful people. They had also died opposing the Brotherhood. Traitors had a hard time getting their last rites in America lately. Private graves were routinely dug up. Cremated ashes were dumped into the sewers. Attempts to ship corpses off to the burial grounds of Europe rarely succeeded. In desperation, a corpse's loved ones would turn to him. If it were worth something to him, he would arrange an exception. A favor here and there in return for a quiet burial in a New Jersey cemetery. _

_None of the names or dates on the collection of tombstones was real, allowing for anonymity. Only a person present at the private funeral would know where to look for any one person. Rogue's marker said her name was Anna Marie Paquin or some such. Hers wasn't the grave he was interested in, however, and he passed it by for the two matching headstones tucked deep into the shade, almost into the tree line. According to the carved out letters, they were a devoted husband and wife who had died within a week of each other. _

_He wondered if he had put them there in the shadows to hide his shame. Perhaps his business of making burial exceptions was to make him feel less hypocritical. The law—his law—refused funeral rites to any who had opposed the Brotherhood. And yet he had these two graves hidden away. _

_He sighed as he stepped closer to the matching grave markers of Scarlet and Charlie Magnus. _

Heh, wonder who _they_ are…  
Bah-Bye, y'all.  
…sigh…  
On to the dreaded Uni homework.


	7. Live with the Guilt

**Bone White Butterfly here, coming to you live from my bedroom. I have been banished from the basement (and the coveted Internet jack) so my brother may yet again liquefy his mind with Halo 2 online. **

**Since you last heard from me, I have completed my college class final, am dreading the results of said final, have visited one of the country's best art schools, done Chicago for the weekend, almost saw _Wicked_ **(damn theatergoers who buy tickets in advance!)**, learned that my baby brother has a hernia, mauled my beloved Volks Beetle **(…they'll both be fine with some minor surgery)**, celebrated 2 family birthdays on the same day **(ages 4 & 53),** am doing bloody back flips because my Senior locker is wider than 5 inches, am doing some front flips too because I can drop my A.P. Calculus class for Commercial Art & Design **(take _that_, higher learning!)**…**

…_and there's a spider dangling right in front of my left eye…so if you'll excuse me for five seconds…_

**Mmn, I'm back. No, I didn't scream. Actually, Mr. Spidey was kinda cute until I smushed him. It's amazing how you're not afraid of creepy crawlies if they're too small for you to see properly. Damn, that thing was tiny…which is the way I like it. What was God thinking when he made the Tarantula? Same goes for Mother Nature. I mean, she's a girl! Shouldn't she have been sympathetic to her fellow femmes and _not_ created an enormous multi-legged creature with hairy fangs? I am SO with Ron Weasley on this one: why couldn't it have been _butterflies?_**

…_**Yeah, I'm sort of blathering on here. But, hey, at least I'm being funny, right? …Um, right? Fine! Be that way!**_

As you can see, I've had an interesting few days. Frankly I'm frazzled. So. Therapeutic writing about graveyards, guilt, and psychosis it is. Just what the doctor ordered. Yep. Yessers. Yepperoo…_uh-oh!_ **—Runs from the Readers armed with Straightjackets!—

* * *

**

…Sigh, how the hell am I supposed to work this? Too many goddamned character POVs.

_**XXX **_

_**Cloning Evolution **_

_**Step 7: Live with the Guilt **_

_**XXX **_

The faint scent of the Cajun was like a slap to Logan's face. He caught it midway between the cemetery gates and the old church. And though he knew to expect the swift collapse when Magneto released his skeleton from its marionette walk, his preoccupation caused him to miss the moment. Stumbling, he all but crashed into the old building's wall. He caught himself at the last moment and breathed hard, forgetting the scent. He hated this existence of being picked up and dropped. And—he could barely admit this to himself—it terrified him.

He had been to an amusement park once. Locked in a harness only someone else could release him from, he had been raised slowly, inexorably, up into the air. The kids who had somehow tricked him into it talked and laughed around him, but he had held his eyes shut during the ascent, feeling the pit in his stomach grow to consume every taut muscle. It didn't do him any good when some cable or clamp released and the metal box he was clamped down to plummeted. There had been nothing free about the free fall. It was controlled from the sudden start to the wrenching finish when the ascent began yet again. And then the next fall, the next climb, never knowing how long each would last or when the cycle would end.

The unending helplessness of being picked up and dropped until the person who controlled it all chose to release him—if men could be assigned a personal hell, that had been his. He silently laughed and choked in the same short instant. That 'had been?' When had it not been? For eleven years now, he had been helpless, forced to live that hell in Magneto's grasp.

A strong hand clutched his shoulder. He jerked to look at Piotr, whose gaze he knew was on his fists. His claws had jumped out an inch. Only an inch, but an inch too far. He knew what the Russian wanted, but he didn't hide away the claws like they had never happened. Instead he glared up at the man who seemed to care for his well-being. 'Why're you still here,' he demanded silently, and if the man answered, he didn't hear it.

Why, indeed? The sister whose life Magneto had held over Piotr's head was dead, buried probably not a hundred yards from where they stood. Why was he still here? There was nothing left to blackmail him with, yet he stayed. Had he turned into one of Seligman's dogs, the ones forced to endure electric shock in a cage? Had Piotr been helpless for so long that when the cage door was left open, and the pain came again, he didn't realize he could escape?

Would it be the same for him? If the suffocating harness unbuckled, would he sit, not realizing until his window of opportunity shrank into nothing and he was again locked into place? Had it happened already?

The hand on his shoulder squeezed tighter. The claws had shot out another few inches. His eyes refocused, and he sent Piotr a look. _'I'm not complacent,'_ his unwavering eyes said. _'I won't resign myself to this hell, and whatever it dishes out for me'_—his claws extended fully with a sharp, metallic scrape—_'let it come.'_

Piotr's serene gaze was soured with a hint of sadness before he looked away and watched Magneto disappear over a hill. He stayed that way, a cold sentinel with his head in profile, waiting for the danger to the man whom he protected to return.

XXX

Erik strolled towards a certain pair of headstones. They stood to the back of a large clump of graves that had an interesting history. Every person there had two things in common. They were the beloved dead of rich or powerful people. They had also died opposing the Brotherhood. Traitors had a hard time getting their last rites in America lately. Private graves were routinely dug up. Cremated ashes were dumped into the sewers. Attempts to ship corpses off to the burial grounds of Europe rarely succeeded. In desperation, a corpse's loved ones would turn to him. If it were worth something to him, he would arrange an exception. A favor here and there was rewarded by a quiet burial in a New Jersey cemetery.

None of the names or dates on the collection of tombstones was real, allowing for anonymity. Only a person present at the private funeral would know where to look for any one person. Rogue's marker said her name was Marie D'Acanto or some such nonsense. Hers wasn't the grave he was interested in, however, and he passed it by for the two matching headstones tucked deep into the shade, almost into the tree line. According to the carved out letters, they were a devoted husband and wife who had died within a week of each other.

He wondered if he had put them there in the shadows to hide his shame. Perhaps his business of making burial exceptions was to make him feel less hypocritical. The law—his law—refused funeral rites to any who had opposed the Brotherhood. And yet he had these two graves hidden away.

He sighed as he looked down at the matching grave markers of Scarlet and Charlie Magnus.

XXX

Remy sat near the top of the cellar steps that ran up along the crumbling brick wall. He had long since retrieved the funeral lily and was studying it as it twirled left and right in his fingers, glowing cherry red. If it were a daisy, he would be plucking exploding petals, muttering, 'she's alive, an' she's dead, but she's alive, yet she's dead…'

Instead, the contradictory truths oscillated in his head like they would in a computer, switching between the two faster and faster until the paradox fried his circuitry. In other words, his headache was killing him. He had sacrificed everything for her corpse, to see it buried and her memory honored. But now she had reappeared, alive—with a ten-year-old girl who called her 'Mom.'

The lily blew apart in an angry explosion of glowing red petals as he threw it away. Through the fingers cradling his face, he looked across at the far corner of the cellar. The girl was the right age; she could be—

But Rogue was dead. He had held her body in his arms.

The headache only got worse. Unable to take it any longer, he jumped to his feet on the stair, whirled around, and pushed up through the old storm cellar doors. He gripped the near horizontal doorframe and vaulted out, not able climb the creaking steps fast enough. He felt like he'd just exited a grave—an empty one. But whether that meant the grave was meant for him or that the original occupant had already clawed her way out, he didn't know.

He rounded the corner on the outside of the church and froze when he saw two men standing there. One of them was Piotr, who stared over the next hill. The other was Wolverine, glaring at Piotr, his nostrils flaring dangerously. Magneto was nowhere in sight.

_Merd—_oh, why didn't he just say it? "Fuck!" Remy mouthed vehemently as he backpedaled. He retreated around the corner, his mind racing. He shot a look at the storm cellar doors and was reminded of a coffin lid—but, hell, he'd pull a double occupancy with a corpse to avoid the bloodied confrontation that would happen if he stayed out here.

So he lifted the 'coffin lid' and scuttled back down the steps. In the cellar, he noticed he could see the Wolverine's feet through the small ground level window. He stared at them and gasped, "What the fuck're you doin' here, Logan?"

XXX

Rogue looked away when she saw Remy rush out of the church's cellar but not for long. She returned her gaze and watched him catch sight of Magneto's bodyguards just before he beat a quick retreat back through the storm cellar doors. She might have stared at those metal doors at the back of the church forever, waiting to see him again and check his face to assure herself that he was all right. She didn't know that she was the latest link in a chain of people that stared silently, waiting, none willing to move until the one they watched did.

Rogue watched for Remy, who watched Logan glare at Piotr. The Russian waited for the return of Magneto. The elderly man himself watched over the grave of an old friend. It didn't seem like he would be content to leave until the dead man crawled out of the ground and said, _"Hello, Magnus."_

That would never happen, though, so it seemed each person would be waiting forever.

XXX

"Can we go"—there was a dangerously long intake breath—"**_Now_!**"

The last word, a sort of exasperated scream, broke Rogue's attention away from the cellar doors in the far distance. She turned to the clone with blazing gold eyes. Apparently, Risty thought they had waited long enough.

Rogue did a quick scan of the cemetery. "In a bit, hon," she answered absentmindedly and stepped out of the car. "Stay here," she added last minute as she headed for the edge of the clearing.

She chose a tree whose enormous branches leaned in quite a ways towards the cemetery and still had most of its golden leaves. Floating into the crown—and careful not to disturb the foliage—she worked her way forward and craned to look about the rolling greens of the graveyard. The entire plot was in sight at her elevation, but Magneto was not. Frowning, she peered left and right and right along the tree line.

There.

Not fifty yards from her stood an old man. His hand rested on one of two matching tombstones. She smiled fiercely to herself, but as she wormed her way out of the tree, she found herself glancing back at the tiny dot that was the faraway church.

Back in the car, she made some notes on a handmade map of the graveyard, threw the pizza boxes into the back, handed Charlie's cake to Risty, and smiled at the clone perhaps a little too brightly.

"_Now_ we can go."

XXX

Only later, when in the privacy of the motel room's bathroom, did she whisper the words she had been thinking since that last look at the old church.

"_Oh God, Remy, why did y'have to find the body?" _

XXX

Remy leaned against one wall in the cellar, looking through the small window opposite him at the Wolverine's feet. A freshly lit cigarette smoked in one hand. He was the type who needed to do something with his hands. He would be a nervous smoker, except—

"Logan," he whispered. The cigarette flew apart in a violent burst of crimson flame. Without looking, he drew out another from his third pack that day, tapped one end with a bare finger, waited a moment later for the tiny explosion, and twisted the now smoking cigarette in his fingers. He had never been able to develop a smoking habit. He only tried when he was nervous, and when he was nervous, it was a miracle if he managed a drag before the cigarette went up in flames.

Sighing, he shook his fingers free of ash and reached into his pants pocket again.

He went through cartons some days. This would be one of them, if church cellars sold them. He only had them now because he had stocked up hours before at a convenience store, thinking he might need them for Rogue.

Another death stick died before its time. He was running out fast. He stared at his little, cropped view of Logan, wishing he could get the Canadian to understand why. He hadn't wanted to. He hadn't known Magneto knew, and the man hadn't given him a choice. _"Dis Cajun may no' have metal bones,"_ he wanted to plead, _"but dis heart is in a metal cage. All he need t'do is squeeze." _Only, he knew the Wolverine wouldn't listen. He would be lucky to finish the first sentence without being gutted.

And so he sat in the old church cellar—the last placed he wanted to be—quaking at the sight of Logan's feet through a grimy window. As the sun sank low, the underground room became all but pitch black. His last cigarette burst into flame, then died to embers, leaving him alone in the smoky darkness.

XXX

They split the chocolate cake in typical Garfield fashion. Rogue cut herself a slice humming Happy Birthday, and Risty decided the other five sixths were for her.

At nightfall, she tucked the girl into bed. "I'll be back in a few hours," she smiled, stroking read hair. She pressed Huck Finn into blue hands when she heard protests about not being tired.

"Do I have to read it _again?_" the clone asked.

Silently, Rogue reminded herself to get the girl another book. "Not if you don't want to," she answered slowly as she thought. The room had a TV, but she had no way of making sure Risty didn't watch something way over her head while she was gone. She debated the pros and cons of handing the girl a Bible, but that decision was made for her when she discovered the bedside table didn't have one. She dug her hands into her jeans, heaving an exasperated breath. Then she reached into her back pocket, getting an idea. She pulled out and unfolded a piece of paper and showed it to Risty. It was a printed copy of a photograph.

"This is a picture of my old family," she said, gesturing to the crowd gathered before the mansion.

The clone's eyes were huge. "That's a lot of people."

"Oh, yes. It was."

Risty pointed to a man kneeling at the front. "That's Doc." Rogue glanced at the younger, less jaded image of McCoy and nodded. The girl's finger slid up a bit. "And this is you." Next, she went to the other blue person in the photograph. "Who's this?" she asked.

"His name's Kurt," Rogue answered, sliding an arm around Risty. "He's also related to Mystique. She was…his mom."

The clone giggled and pointed. "He doesn't have any hair."

She laughed too. "That's mah Charlie."

"Charles Xavier… And who's this?"

Rogue's smile died as she glanced at the man Risty pointed at. He had an arm wrapped about her younger self's waist, and he seemed rather smug that she hadn't thrown him halfway across the mansion grounds for it. "The names aren't really important right now," she evaded. "Why don't you practice looking like them until you get tired?"

Risty nodded and smiled, liking this game. Rogue tousled her hair and told her not to morph into the spiky guy where anything could get shredded. Then she walked to the door. Looking back, she caught sight of Remy sitting in bed, staring at a photograph. She rushed out in the night, locking the door behind her.

XXX

Logan was the last man still standing outside the car. He found himself glancing between the open door he was expected to enter and the one over on the front passenger side, which in his mind was the lesser of two evils. Only a few steps away, but he would never make it—unless Magneto allowed him to.

The word "allowed" was a lie, like the so-called "falls" in amusement park rides. It sounded like the grant of some freedom, but it was only a calculated lengthening of the leash. He might be allowed to sit next to Piotr if he asked and acted deferential to his leash holder, but that was a trap he wouldn't let himself fall into. He would never ask for permission to move his body and place it where he chose. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness had long crumbled to dust in his mind. Instead, Choice was humanity's right. Even under the strictest regime, a man could choose which pair of socks he wanted to wear—and if he only had one pair, he could pick which sock went on which foot.

He did not wake to find his body in the middle of dressing itself because the man in the door had woken early and decided he wanted to take an early morning stroll.

Logan placed a hand on the car's roof and started a deliberately slow walk around to the front passenger side. He didn't quite manage a full step before he was thrown back and crumbled into a ball of limbs to fit through the open car door. He hit the middle of the bench seat assigned to him and straightened into a rigid, seated posture. It was a step up from being lugged around like a possession. Now he was allowed the pretense of being a human marionette.

He glared at the man sitting across from him on the other seat, briefly, and then he closed his eyes. It was one the only choice he could still make that mattered one whit. Magneto could position him to look, but he could refuse to see. If only he could refuse to hear.

"Logan, all you need to do is _ask."_

XXX

Super strength and a shovel could take a girl a long way; in Rogue's case 6 feet deep—twice. Now she stood before one last grave. She sighed. It had been hard enough to watch the body get buried; did she really have to dig up the grave as well?

Her shovel dug deep into the earth and wrenched out an enormous clod of grass and dirt.

XXX

Remy groaned and groggily looked around the dark cellar. In an instant, he was awake, standing, and shaking out his pant legs furiously. Insects scattered, disappearing through all sorts of cracks in the mortar of the brick walls. He rubbed his scratchy eyes, getting the feeling that the dark sclera was shot through with red veins. Instinctively, he reached for the pocket where he kept a bottle of eye drops. Then he let his hand fall, remembering that his trench had been taken from him eleven years ago. Old habits died hard, he knew, but some of them were too bitchy persistent. The leather security blanket with sleeves had been gone for longer than he'd owned it now, but he still found himself reaching for pockets.

Most people misunderstood his habit of reaching for his heart when the X-Men or Rogue were mentioned. It had less to do with soothing an emotional ache than it did unthinkingly reaching for a left breast pocket he no longer had. It had held a photograph, one he wasn't quite sure he belonged in, though it was nice to think that he did. His arm was around her, and none of her family—including her—was trying to kill him for it. Smile for the camera, no worries.

But the worries had come back when Magneto did, and it was made quite obvious that he didn't belong.

He dropped his hand from his heart and looked out the small window. He realized Logan had gone. Warily, he came up through the cellar doors. There was no sign of anyone but the dead. He found himself peering in the direction where, out of sight, over the next hill, Magneto had buried Rogue. He wondered if he should walk over and visit, if he should—

What? Was he supposed to see if she had downed the magic potion like Juliet and hadn't really been dead at all? It was impossible. People couldn't fake death for three days, let alone ten years. And even if it was possible, what did it matter? Dead, or even alive, she was gone, and he couldn't follow her. Magneto's blackmail was too strong. And either way, he was trapped and alone.

Turning away sharply, he stalked out through the cemetery gates and into the night.

XXX

Rogue placed the jar and the three labeled bags of bones and teeth on the long table in the conference room that McCoy used as an office. "Four of the strongest, two days to spare," she stated in an emotionally flat voice.

He didn't ask how or even give a congratulatory grunt. Instead, he grabbed up one of the bags, pointed at the name she had written there, and declared, "I can't use _this_."

Her stare was level. "An' why not?"

"You know why."

She shook her head. "No, I don't." Ticking off fingers, she said, "All your criteria is met. A "strong mutant" with a "useful ability" whose mere existence is a "psychological and emotional blow" to th' enemy. Th' perfect choice. If you don't want to do it, then it's for another reason, an' I think I know what it is." She pressed both hands onto the table. "These clones are people, Hank. You don't get to screw with their heads an' throw them away when you mess up. They're not expendable, an' it's sick, but you're their father."

"And you believe you're their mother?" he countered. "That you're Mystique's mother!"

She smiled dangerously. "Damn straight." She pressed the bag into McCoy's hand. You'll make this clone," she said. "An' you'll do nothin' else. I'm watchin' over them, Hank—all of 'em. You touch 'em, and in my mind, you're just as bad as Danvers was."

On her way out, she stopped in the doorframe and didn't look back into his wide, staring eyes. "An' Hank," she drawled, "Her name is _Risty._"

XXX

"What's his name?"

She bit the inside of her lip. "I dunno," she admitted. "Elf, maybe."

"There's elves in my Tolkien books."

"Do y'like them, the books?"

"A lot. …Mom, what's that?"

"That's his tail, hon."

"Oh." There was a brief pause, then: "And what's that?"

She followed the pointed blue finger, then hid her face behind her hands and groaned. Leave it to McCoy to teach a little girl weaponry, basic physics, and advanced chemistry, but leave out the anatomy lessons. "That's his"—she swallowed—"that's his…other tail, hon."

Another pause.

"Oh."

* * *

—**Grins— We have the Fuzzy Dude! Okay, guilt trips are over for a bit. Now I get to do some clone-style comedic relief!**

**The Canon character back-stories—**Remy has something to do with Magneto's capture of Logan. Magneto's got some mungo blackmail hanging over Remy. Rogue faked her death but didn't mean for Remy to find her "body." …Am I missing anything? Oh, yeah. Piotr's sister is dead, and you get the feeling that he's just hanging around to watch over Logan (sympathy or something)**—getting a little confusing, I know. But hey, a lot of stuff happened during the 15-ish years between the last Evo Episode and the start of my story! **

_Okay, okay, so I'm obsessed with that bloody photograph and I read way too much into it sometimes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's a group shot of the Evolution X-Men & Friends posed in front of the Mansion. They ended the show with that photograph. You can Google image search it if you're curious. _

**

* * *

Review Responses: **

First of all, thank you. Especially my loyal repeat reviewers. I don't know what I've done to deserve you guys.

**giveGodtheglory: "**Thanks for the note about Wolves in captivity starving themselves." —perks up at mention of Logan streaking— "Really?"  
And…just a guess here, but something tells me you didn't like Piotr much in the last chapter. …Exactly how hard did you "slug" him, anyway?

——

**otak the canadian: **kinda figured you were a guy. I read two of your fics and laughed—in a horrified sort of way. Sorry about the Internet problems.  
———

**skin2skincontact: **Hey, let's not get into the whole fem/masc domination thing, 'kay? It's just so Elementary School, and I still haven't forgiven or forgotten that Rosenheimer prick (sheepish—yeah, the Officer "Rose" who torments Rogue's mind in Ch. 4 is shamelessly based off a real guy I knew, name and all—but hey, what's the use being an author if you can't write your childhood nemesis into a life-threatening coma?)

And about me splitting up the story into a bunch of different ones, **you overestimate my bravery and underestimate my sanity!** I'm not retelling the same story from, like forty different points of view. For example, "_Elf's"_ story deals with the original Kurt, but it leaves all this angst with Remy, Rogue, Logan, etc. the HELL alone. …Of course, I have to get un-lazy enough to split up, _plot out_ (ick!), and type up the fanfic-shunsss before I can implement my grand master plan.  
———

**ishandahalf: **well, I'm glad someone else likes graveyards. I'm oddly obsessed with them in my writing, you see…— And I do have something planned for a Romy reunion…sorta.

——

**AND THANKS YOU OTHER REVIEWERS. I SAVE AWAY YOUR REVIEWS FOR THOSE STUPID BAD DAYS WHEN I NEED A PICK-ME-UP.**

**

* * *

Note about _Seligman's Dogs_: _I gave you guys an inaccurate, somewhat barbaric portrayal of the 1965 experiment. I had to get the point across quick to people who don't know psychology from biology. It wasn't that bad, really, and it did serve a purpose._ The theory of _Learned Helplessness_ developed because of this experiment. It's the one that explains why people stay in abusive relationships. **The theory of developed because of this experiment. It's the one that explains why people stay in abusive relationships. 

**AND NOW I SOUND LIKE A STUPID PSYCHOLOGY TEXTBOOK, SO I'LL STOP AND LET YOU GET ON WITH YOUR LIVES. BYE!**


	8. Have The Talk

**Rogue gaL: **—stares— Whoa! Hold on there. Okay, so we need to set some things straight here. You see, all that stuff about Rogue "switching sides" and "valiantly giving her life" to save Magneto is just PROPAGANDA. A story well told by The Master of Metal & Lies. …Perhaps a little **too** well told, it seems… _The Truth: Rogue (& McCoy) faked death by growing and disposing of a brain-dead clone. Unfortunately, Remy didn't escape the compound like Rogue told him to but went looking for her…and found the body she had dumped. Rogue reluctantly disappeared into the night. So her "body" could be laid to rest, Remy cut a deal with Magneto. Mags declared her a hero and told the history books what to say about how she died, and Remy—_well, you don't know what he gave up yet.

**Skin2skincontact:** No, it's okay to like something I worked really hard on. I'm glad the scary number of POVs made the chapter enjoyable for you. Would I have done them if I expected people to hate it? ——— Hey, I started reading your _Shrieks and Shadows_ fic. It's interesting but the mistakes are killing the wincing English Professor perfectionist in me. Fix it up yourself or blackmail a friend into doing it, please. It's just basic-level editing. Make the sentences make sense, work on the grammar, fix up the formatting—things like that. It's a great story so far, but it's begging to be fixed up.

**Anna Marie Raven:** Yay for psychology references! The last chapter used a lot of my psych knowledge, since I've never been in such a situation. This coming chapter, though, is pretty much from personal experience.

**Ishandahalf:** Honey, using the Enter key a few more times when you review would make reading them so much easier. Less squinting, more chuckling, y'know?  
Anyway. Funny thing about the Romy is that it was totally unplanned; it just sort of happened. But it's coming together so well, I'm just gonna spend a second and silently thank my Agathodæmon (Ancient Greek guardian/helper spirit) for guiding the idea along.  
(What? I'm researching ancient mythology for a few dozen short original stories. …If you laugh, I'll whip out the Voodoo book with you in mind.)

**GiveGodtheglory:** Yeah, sure. People think it's funny how Remy got bugs in his pants. But I sympathize with my poor (unfortunately) fictional, (unfortunately) copyrighted Cajun. I write this fanfic in a BASEMENT. There are spider webs gleaming in the dim light. At midnight the creepy crawlies squirm up out of the carpet fibers. I'm barefoot, and I'm scared. —clock strikes twelve— … "_HEEEEEEEEEELLP!"_

**EVERYBODY: **UM, JUST THOUGHT I'D MENITON THIS. THE CLONES **ARE** NOT THE SAME PEOPLE AS THEIR "PARENTS," SO IT'D BE KINDA STUPID TO ASSUME THEY **ALL** END UP IN THE SAME ROMANTIC PAIRINGS THAT THE ORIGINALS DID. And if they all do, it proves that love is actually just biology and chemistry…which would prove McCoy right, dammit. NEEDLESS TO SAY, I'M RUBBING MY EVIL LITTLE HANDS TOGETHER AND PLOTTING SOME CLONE ROMANCES YOU'D PROBABLY NEVER THINK OF.

* * *

I am truly sorry about shortness and possible not so goodness. I was preoccupied with taking down some plagiarizing idiot on FictionPress (I have a published author who likes me now), keeping an eye on my little brother after he had surgery on a hernia (poor baby!), and valiantly trying to forget how few days it is until September 1st (not thinking about it, la-la-la…dammit!). 

**XXX**

_**Cloning Evolution**_

_**Step 8: Have The Talk**_

_**XXX**_

Risty looked down at the small, blue frosted cake. "Is it Charlie's birthday again?"

"No. Yours. Well, sorta." Rogue shrugged, snapping a candle in two and pressing the burnable piece into the cake. "Half birthday. You've been around for a whoppin' six months. …Eh, actually you only left the tank six weeks ago, but I'm countin' every day up t' your conception, so it's six months today." She paused and thought, '_Six months…shit, that's it? Six months an' my two-celled organism's a teenager? …Damn, they grow up fast.'_

The girl was quiet and unblinking as she watched Rogue light the shortened candle. It was her "learning sponge" behavior. Rogue made sure to be very well mannered and never, _ever_ cuss when the girl acted like that. Normal kids picked up swears with frightening speed and glee; she did _not_ want to see SpongeGirl in action.

"Why is there a candle?" Risty asked at last.

"Well, on birthdays, you get a candle for every year you've been alive. You're half a year old, so you get half a candle."

A moment.

"Why didn't Charlie have a candle?"

Rogue was truly beginning to hate that little, innocent pause Risty had right before she asked the most difficult questions on the bloody planet. She bit her lip. "Because he wasn't there to blow his candles out," she explained evasively, eyes downcast.

Another pause, accented by a huge intake of breath that Rogue mistook as the windup to a really long question. Only at the last second did she blink with realization and shield the fragile candlelight with her hands. "Not _now_!" she cried, and Risty froze. Then the girl sighed, releasing the impressive breath she had meant to blow out the candle with.

Rogue answered the question before the clone could open her mouth. "You have t'wait until the birthday song's been sung," she explained with raised eyebrows. "An' you have t'make your wish first." This time she anticipated the question before Risty could even start her patented silent moment. "The wish is for whatever y'want. Can't guarantee you'll get it, but if y'want it hard enough…"

She trailed off appropriately before going on. "Rules: y' can't tell _anyone_ what you wished for, or it'll never come true. An' you have t' blow out all the candles on your cake to get a chance at the wish. Oh, an' if you've got too many candles—or asthma—you can ask people t'help you blow. Got that?"

The girl nodded and morphed a paper cone party hat onto her head. She had a look of perfect seriousness on her face. Rogue sang the birthday song while trying valiantly not to laugh. Risty asked for help blowing out the half candle—seeing as she had no prior experience in candle snuffing—blew hard, and then immediately started scrutinizing Rogue's face.

The woman got the most bizarre idea that the wish had been for her skin to turn blue. She hid a grin.

There was some inconspicuous fiddling with a holographic wristwatch, followed by a squeal of utter delight.

XXX

They divided the cake in their usual one sixth-five sixths spit, and the five sixths disappeared in record time while Rogue was barely into her single slice. She was left staring with her fork in her mouth. A small part of her was adamant that Kurt's ability to wolf down incredible amounts of food was genetic.

The rest of her wasn't disagreeing.

Risty wiped all stray icing off the serving plate with her finger. Then she started eying Rogue's cake dangerously, causing the woman to edge back and eat exponentially faster. The clone's glare seemed to accuse her of being a pig—she fought not to snort.

Soon there was no trace of cake left in the guest unit that Rogue had commandeered to be Risty's room. The two of them hunkered down on the floor, enjoying the silence and happy stomachs with varying magnitudes of fullness.

"When is your birthday?" the clone asked Rogue eventually.

She did a few calculations involving a day in late February before answering, "In a couple'a months."

The girl rolled over on her stomach and looked at her. "How many candles will you have?"

She hissed from an imaginary pain. "…Thirty-four," she admitted, trying not to search her face for wrinkles.

Risty's eyes were enormous. "That's a lot of candles."

Rogue shrugged with a resentful laugh. "Yeah, well I thought so too when I was your"—she stopped suddenly and blinked; technically, she had still been in the womb when she was the clone's age—"A _lot_ of candles," she said instead with a sharp nod of agreement. She smiled at Risty. Inside though, she was screaming.

'_**Oh, hell. I'm ancient!'**_

XXX

After a while, Rogue left to do her work. Risty had asked her mom what her work once, and the woman had reluctantly said "gorilla welfare." She still wasn't quite sure what that was exactly, but it sounded important. She shrugged to herself, rolled onto her back on the floor, and looked up at the painted blue ceiling. Life was good in her opinion. Blue skin, blue room, blue birthday cake, blue Mom—she smiled, happy her wish had worked.

She lay for a bit, then sat up as that nasty feeling snuck up on her. She got it when she was alone. Reading helped sometimes—she glanced at her bookshelf—but not for long. Sighing, she stood and walked out into the hall. There was only one thing to do.

The children all perked up when she came in. They got the nasty feeling a lot too. She walked along the walkway and waved to them all before going back to the second in line. It was true that she spent more time with him than any of the others, but who could blame her? He was blue.

She sat down in front of his tank and waved again. He returned it.

With his longer tail, he reached out to touch the glass that separated them. In turn, she scooted under the walkway's railing until her legs danged off the edge. Stretching, she managed to press three of the longer fingers in her left hand to the glass. She looked up and saw him recoil a little at the sight of her two "extra" fingers. Then he began to scrutinize his own hands.

Some part of her expected him to grow the extra two fingers and make his hands look like hers, but he merely looked back and forth between their hands with a pensive expression. Well, she could relate. She had always wondered why the heck Rogue wasn't blue.

Good thing for birthday wishes.

Smiling at him, she got rid of her thumb and pinky. The remaining fingers grew and reshaped until her hand was the same as his. The worry lifted from his face. Instead he looked oddly eager, bouncing slightly, as if to say, _"Do it again! Do it again!"_

On a whim, she made her hair blue. He was so delighted; it looked like he was going into a fit.

"What're you doin' down here, hon?"

She turned away from the child in the tank, and looked up at Rogue. Sensing the worry in the woman's voice, she scooted back to sit safely on the walkway.

Rogue started to walk down the stair towards her, but then she looked down. The steps were suspended from the ceiling by wire, and they themselves seemed to be made of thinner wires interwoven to form a pattern of X-s. It was easy to see through the large diamond-shaped gaps. Muttering something about a "blasted forge" and insanity, she ignored the fragile-looking steps and floated down to Risty's side.

To answer Rogue's question, the girl turned back to the clone. "Visiting," she said, waving. She returned the floating child's smile. "You get lonely, stuck in there all the time."

Rogue, suddenly realizing that Risty had been very lonely growing up in a fish tank, was mortified. "Oh, I'm so sorry, hon," she said.

"For what?" Risty looked at her, surprised.

"For not visiting you more."

"Oh." The girl tilted her head—her version of a shrug. "It's okay. You're so busy with your gorilla welfare—"

Rogue snorted. "Guerrilla warfare. It's—complicated," she sighed.

Risty went on, unfazed, "And you've been out of your tank so long, you probably forgot what it's like. So it's okay."

Rogue had to plunk down on the wire-grid floor. Hard. "Honey," she began, like what she was about to tell her the hardest thing in the world. "Risty, I—I was never in a tank."

The girl looked at her like she was nuts. "What?"

"I wasn't born—made in a tank." Nervously, she put her hands on her abdomen. "I was made here."

"In your _stomach_?" There was note of horror in that sentence.

"Not mine," she corrected with a sigh, "My mom's, and—"

"**Your mom _ate_ you?"**

XXX

Was it a bad thing to break into hysterical laughter when the horrified, blue, 6-month-old teenager sitting next to you looked ready to faint? Probably, but Rogue couldn't help herself. "No, no!" she finally managed in between gasps for air. "Of course not!"

Risty wasn't buying it. She scooted backwards in a way that clearly said, 'Don't eat me.'

_That_ calmed down Rogue in a manner right quick. "No one ate anybody," she said with a straight, serious face. "An' I wasn't in her stomach; I was in her—" Instead of finishing the sentence Rogue blinked. Then she groaned. No more anatomy lessons, please, if there was a god—no more anatomy lessons.

Risty looked at her oddly, but thankfully did not ask where babies were made. Instead: "How did you get in there?"

'_Oh, _Hell._ There is a God—and He hates me!_'

Such thoughts careened about her aching head as she massaged her temples. Part of her argued that a six-month-old really didn't need to hear this. Another part countered that she had to tell the girl how people were normally made to make her understand the cloning thing. The rest of her was too busy running around screaming to take sides.

She finally sighed and decided to be incredibly vague. "My dad put me in my mom, like McCoy put you in th' tank. It's what people normally do…" she went on, stumbling at this point. She decided just to trail off.

Risty nodded to herself, quiet, accepting. Then she did that terrifying little pause of hers before asking one innocent question:

"Why didn't McCoy just put me in you?"

XXX

'_**Oh Dear God!'**_

The sentence kept on repeating in Rogue's head as she numbly stared off into space. The thought of McCoy putting—

'**_Oh Dear God! Oh Dear _fuckin_—'_**

"No. No!" she cried, shaking her head violently. "That won't happen. It can't!" She suddenly remembered Risty. "It can't, because that's how norm—ordinary folks are made. An' you're not ordinary." Well, at least this conversation was doing one good thing. Talking to the clone seemed to keep her mind off—

She gulped. "Honey, when an ordinary person gets made, part of her mom an' part of her dad get put together to make a new person, but you—do you remember Mystique?"

The girl nodded.

"And Kurt?"

The second nod came after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, Mystique is Kurt's mom. Kurt is part Mystique an' part his dad—Wagner. But you, both your parts are Mystique, hon. An' you weren't…put in her because she's gone now. Instead Doc McCoy used a piece of her to make both parts of you." She pointed up at the clone in the tank. "Elf's parts are both Kurt." She gestured at the rest of the clones. "The others' two parts come from the same person too." She shrugged helplessly. "You're special, Risty. You—an' your brothers an' sisters—are special. Do you understand?"

The girl didn't say anything for the longest time.

"So you're not my real mom?" she asked, almost inaudibly.

Oh, hell.

Rogue reached over and pulled the clone into her arms. "No. I'm not," she sighed reluctantly. She stroked the redhead's hair—which had inexplicably become blue again. "But Risty?" she began, and the girl looked up. She asked her, "Can y'think of me as your mom anyway?"

* * *

**(this chapter was dedicated to my Mom, who is still dealing with the last of three embarrassingly curious little kids)**

My four-year-old brother is the one responsible for the "She _ate_ the baby!" line, among others. At a time when my head just barely cleared the countertop, I distinctly recall following her around the house for a few hours, asking her questions like "How did Daddy get Mickey in you?" (I never fully realized the implications of that sentence until now...) And my other brother (Mickey)…well, his questions probably shouldn't have been asked in public places.

I feel sorry for her sometimes, when I'm not trying to hide my amusement.

**Well, it was rather short (for me), hopefully funny, and definitely had a few shudder-worthy mental images. I now bid you adieu. **


End file.
